Women in politics

TAHIR MEHDI PUBLISHED May 25, 2015 01:36am

The writer works with Punjab Lok Sujag,

a research and advocacy group.

RECENTLY, it was reported that women were barred from

voting in the Lower Dir by-election held earlier this month.
It was not the first time, however, that this has happened,
nor is it limited to Dir alone. More importantly, the oft
reported phenomenon of womens deliberate exclusion from
participating in elections is only the tip of the iceberg. The
issue that underpins it women in politics seldom finds
place in our political discourse.
Democracies across the world have struggled to ensure equal
participation of women. Although the success rate has
understandably not been uniform, Pakistan seems to be going
in reverse gear.
Consider, for example, the fact that whereas there were 77.8
women voters compared with 100 men in the first general
elections of 1970 in the then Western provinces (present-day
Pakistan), their ratio of participation in elections held almost
half a century later, in 2013, actually slipped a notch to 77.4!

In Pakistans political arena, women are

acceptable only as proxies or an extension of
male politicians.

If these two, almost equal figures, are viewed in the specific

socio-political context of the years in question (such as level of
urbanisation, literacy, etc), they dont represent a standstill.
They in fact stand witness to our regression.
The debate on womens participation in politics in Pakistan has
largely remained confined to reserving seats for them. The
1973 Constitution reserved 10 seats in the National Assembly
for women with the general seat members serving as their
electoral college. The reservation was made for three general
elections or ten years, whichever came later. The reason for
this time bar was that it was hoped that within that span of
time, women would arrive at par with men in politics, thus
negating the need for special provisions.

The optimism, however, proved to be misplaced. Although Gen

Zia doubled the number of womens seats, he did not extend
the time bar. The seats thus expired after the 1988 elections
and the next three parliaments were without womens seats.
Gen Musharraf proved more generous than his predecessor and
increased the number of womens seats in the National
Assembly to an impressive 60, and likewise in the provincial
assemblies. He did not put an expiry date on these either.
Three elections have been held under this system so far and
together they constitute a substantial body of experience,
enough to evaluate whether it has brought us any closer to the
objective of gender equality in the political sphere.
The answer is not difficult to find. It is written all over our
politics. The reserved seats have only helped political
patriarchs increase their numerical strength in the houses.
They see them as a bonus, the awarding of which is
monopolised by the party heads under the party-list system.
Members may grumble over this monopoly but they do not
disagree that only women belonging to the political elite
should come on the reserved seats.
Earlier this year, Balochistan Assembly speaker Jan
Mohammed Jamali (PML-N) refused to withdraw his
daughters name in favour of his partys chosen candidate in

the Senate election.

The case of Sindh MPA, Parveen Junejo, is even more telling.
She was elected from a general seat in Dadu as a proxy for her
husband who was barred from contesting for legal reasons, but
after the couple became estranged, Ms Junejo claimed she was
forced to resign her seat. Her party and the Sindh Assembly, in
the manner of a tribal jirga, promptly completed the procedure
required to unseat her.
Equality of women in politics is not on any partys agenda.
They are content with flaunting their few women leaders as
evidence of their progressive politics. In practical electoral
terms, it is much easier for them to take womens votes as
multipliers of male consent. They are then left with the task of
managing only the local-level male powerbrokers.

On the other hand, the parliamentary status of women on

reserved seats remains completely dependent on their male
colleagues even if they outperform the men on the floor of the
house. Women are acceptable only as proxies or an extension
of male politicians.
The present electoral system and the politics it is generating
have become a vehicle for reinforcing the gender status quo,
instead of being a tool to challenge and change it. There is a
reason why even the parties that are against women in the
political sphere, including Jamaat-i-Islami which spearheaded
their exclusion from the Lower Dir by-election, happily
nominate women candidates on reserved seats.
In hindsight, it seems the present system was designed only to
play with the optics of womens participation. It has effected a
complete disconnect between the image and the reality on the
ground. While we have a considerable number of women in
parliament, womenfolk can still be barred from getting
registered as voters and from casting their ballots.
If the increased presence of women was intended to have a
trickle-down effect, let us admit that it simply hasnt
happened and there are no signs it can ever do so.
This is not to say that ensuring and increasing womens

This is not to say that ensuring and increasing womens

participation in politics is impossible. One way can be for
women to have a double vote, with one vote for the general
seat candidate and another for the womens seat. A single
voter casting multiple ballots for different categories of
candidates, including women, minorities, etc was tried out in
local government elections of 2000 and 2005.
Another method could be to make it mandatory for a winner to
have secured men and womens votes in a fixed proportion. Yet
another option can be to assign womens votes an additional
fractional weightage while consolidating results.

The point here, however, is not to propose a particular method

but to stress that unless the electoral system puts an additional
value on the votes of common womenfolk and incentivises
their participation, womens equality or even their increased
participation will remain a distant dream.
The writer works with Punjab Lok Sujag, a research and advocacy
group.
Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2015
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Tahir Mehdi works with Punjab Lok Sujag, a research and

advocacy group that has a primary interest in
understanding governance and democracy.
He tweets @TahirMehdiZ

The views expressed by this writer and commenters below do not necessarily re ect the views and
policies of the Dawn Media Group.

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