Constraints in Women's Political Participation: Analysis from General Election 2008-13
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Constraints in Women's Political Participation: Analysis from General Election 2008-13 SDPI Discussion Paper Muhammad Asim Jamil 1 Table of Contents Summary………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………4 Literature Review……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………4 Methodology………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….6 Zero Turnout Locations in 2008………………………………………………………………………………………………………………6 Awareness Campaign in 2012-13……………………………………………………………………………………………………………8 Missing Women Voters and the 2013 Elections………………………………………………………………………………………10 Recommendations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….11 References……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12 Annexures………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………13 2 Summary Democracy is still in the nascent stages in Pakistan and the country faces a very basic problem of disenfranchisement of women. In the national elections of 2008 held in Pakistan, there were 564 female polling stations where reportedly not even a single ballot paper was stamped. These polling stations were spread all over the country, and 85% of them were situated in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). These were regions where there was collective opposition from the tribespeople, political and religious parties to the casting of votes by females. In order to prevent a similar situation arising again, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), civil society organizations and the media took the responsibility of voter mobilization and awareness raising on women’s political participation in these areas before the general elections of 2013. However, the outcome of these efforts cannot be assessed due to unavailability of polling station level results even twelve months after the general election. This brief details why there is an urgent need to publish polling station specific data, which is normally documented in Form XVI of the ECP. All by Returning Officers (ROs) at the constituency level are required to fill out this form and send it to the ECP, and the Commission thus has the data available. Unless this data is made public, it is not possible to assess if women were able to exercise their right to vote in all regions. Indeed, if this were not the case, it would call into question the validity of election results in certain constituencies. 3 Introduction Despite the growth and development of democracy in Pakistan, many women are not in a position to make independent decisions regarding sending their representatives into parliament. There are several reasons for this. The most important one is pressure from families, tribal and clan chiefs, religious leaders, and local political leaders who not only dictate choices, but in some cases may even ban females from exercising their right to choose to candidate. Pakistan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that binds the country to ensure universal suffrage, and guarantee free and fair elections under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As such, attempts to disenfranchise women are not only against the law of the land, but also violate constitutional provisions, and international treaty obligations. Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) always promised for bridging the gender gap in electoral participation but their results and commitments having zero correlation in the light of the results of General Election 2013. Female representation on elected seats is decreased from 06 percent to 02 percent only as compared election 13’ to General Election 2008. ECP also failed to implement the separate counting in combine polling stations on form XIV in election 13’. Literature Review Politics is exclusively a manly domain in Pakistan. In General Elections 2008, disenfranchisement on the basis of gender was evident in many areas of 39 districts of Pakistan1. The first factor leading to disenfranchisement is condemnation of obtaining national identity cards. In 2012 “Trust for Democratic Education and Accountability (TDEA)” a non-profit organization conducted focus group discussions in those areas of the districts separately for males and females to observe and analyze the issue of zero percent turnout in many polling stations. The key observations of these surveys indicate that disenfranchisement is a result of restrictions imposed by political parties and family chiefs on females to exercise their right of suffrage. There are many other factors on part of Election Commission of Pakistan as polling stations are far away from communities and block codes of east areas bind with west areas polling stations etc. Civil society organizations and media raise this scorching issue and mobilize local communities of those constituencies under the rules of Election Commission of Pakistan. The disenfranchisement leads to poor living conditions for women as suffrage encourage women to take a stand and raise voice for their needs and defend their rights. All these factors motivated civil society organizations, NGOs, activists, politicians and international agencies have been able to articulate and collectively solve the issue and ensure women participation. International donors also sponsored for initiatives to strengthen women’s political participation. Seda2 (2002) Women can be effective in politics, looking at the impact women have when participating in the political arena, political agenda is developed, and the issues that are being raised through their 1 Election Commission of Pakistan http://www.ecp.gov.pk/Results/PSWise/NA/Form1617NA/Default.aspx 2 Conference Report 2002: Strengthening Women’s Political Participation in Indonesia 4 involvement. Women always faced the dominance of a masculine culture in particular political context at all levels local, provincial and national. In men dominated societies, women may be exploited by grabbing their right of suffrage. This is also the part of Millennium Development Goals that women’s equal participation with men is their fundamental right to participate in political life for women’s empowerment. Elsayyad and Hanafy3 (2014) examined the impact of religious behaviors on voting pattern by empirically analyzing the voting outcomes in Egypt. They conclude that two dimensions that affect voting outcomes at the constituency level includes socioeconomic profile and the electoral institutional framework. They showed that education is negatively associated with Islamist voting. However, this may not be evidence in case of Pakistan. Michelsen and Geys4 (2014) studied decentralization and voter turnout for German municipalities. According to them a vast academic literature illustrates that turnout is affected by the institutional design of elections (e.g., spread of polling stations, voter lists, gender voting, electoral system, postal or Sunday voting etc). They followed a simple Downsian theoretical framework and argue that the distribution of political and administrative competences across government levels affects voters’ turnout decisions by influencing the expected net benefit of voting. They test this proposition empirically to check the institutional variation across German municipalities and find supportive evidence. This is also the case in Pakistan as the current political situation supports the Downsian theoretical framework that people are unhappy with their elected government. They are demanding re-elections in the state to get their democratic and constitutional rights. Gibson and Stillman5 (2008) apply Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools to validated national election survey data for New Zealand. They calculate distance and travel time by road from the place of residence to the nearest polling place and combine their time estimate with imputed wages for all sample members. Using this new measure of the opportunity cost of voting to predict turnout at the individual level, the study find that small increases in the opportunity costs of time can have large effects in reducing voter turnout. Women are very good campaigners, organizers and mobilizers, but fear sometimes prevents women from contesting elections and from participating in political life. The one and only way to lift female is education. Education has led many women to participate in political process. Education is the most important channel for encouraging women to speak out and use effectively their right of suffrage. 3 Elsayyad, M. (2014). Voting Islamist or voting secular? An empirical analysis of voting outcomes in Egypt’s “Arab Spring”. Public Choice, 160(1-2), 109-130. 4 Michelsen, C., Boenisch, P., & Geys, B. (2014). (De) Centralization and voter turnout: theory and evidence from German municipalities. Public Choice, 159(3-4), 469-483. 5 Fulton, J. S. (2008). Time to vote!. Clinical Nurse Specialist, 22(5), 207 5 In Pakistan there are about 48.65% female population6, but their political participation is extremely poor. Female suffrage in Pakistan is black suffrage refers to black people's right to vote. Black suffrage has been at issue in countries established under conditions of white supremacy. It might be limited through official or informal (de facto) discrimination. In many places, Blacks have obtained suffrage through national independence. Likewise, in some constituencies of Pakistan females are depriving from this basic right. Literature clearly shows that the issue of disenfranchisement exists in many parts of the world. There are multiple factors that cause this problem