PESHAWAR: The Election Commission of Pakistan on Wednesday notified Aisha Bibi of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Baseerat Khan of the Balochistan Awami Party as MPAs-elect on two seats reserved in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly for women from the merged tribal districts.

The notification for the purpose was issued in line with Article 106 of the Constitution read with Section 104 of the Elections Act, 2017.

The name of Aisha Bibi was notified following a legal battle between her and another female candidate of the PTI, Mehreen Rauf Afridi, who had claimed that Ms Aisha was not a registered voter anywhere in tribal districts on the day of the filing of nomination papers, so she was not eligible to contest election for the provincial assembly seats reserved for women.

Ms Aisha’s nomination papers were accepted by the returning officer but she was later disqualified by an election appellate tribunal on Sept 13.

ECP notifies election of Aisha Bibi, Baseerat Khan

However, the Peshawar High Court set aside the order of the tribunal on Oct 10 by accepting her petition.

Ms Aisha’s name is at Serial No 1 of the priority list of candidates for the reserved seats by the ruling PTI and Mehreen Rauf Afridi’s at Serial No 3.

MPA-elect Aisha Bibi belongs to a political family of Mohmand tribal district. Her maternal grandfather, the late Haji Dilawar Khan, remained as a senator as well as an MPA.

As for Baseerat Khan, she belongs to Khyber tribal district but currently lives in Peshawar.

The ECP had notified Naeema Kishwar Khan of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl and Anita Mehsud of the PTI as elected candidates in Aug on two of the four seats reserved for women in the first ever provincial assembly polls in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas, now called merged tribal districts.

Under the Constitution, those to fill seats reserved for women and non-Muslims will be elected through proportional representation system of the political parties’ lists of candidates on the basis of the total number of general seats won by every party from the province concerned.

In light of that constitutional provision, the commission had allocated two reserved seats to PTI and one each to the JUI-F and the BAP.

However, the two seats remained vacant as the PTI mentioned only Anita Mehsud’s name in its priority list, while the BAP didn’t produce priority list. The same reasons prompted the ECP to re-issue the schedule for filling the remaining two seats by the nominees of the PTI and the BAP.

Of the provincial assembly’s 16 general seats of tribal districts for which polling was held on July 20, the independent candidates had won six, the PTI five, the JUI-F three and Jamaat-i-Islami and Awami National Party one each.

Two of the independent MPAs- elect joined the PTI, whereas three of them, in a surprise move, joined the BAP, which had no presence in the politics of the province until then.

With the joining of the independent candidates, the PTI was entitled to get two seats reserved for women, while the JUI-F and BAP secured one seat each.

The single seat reserved for non-Muslims went to the PTI with its candidate, Wilson Wazir, being declared successful.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2019