ISLAMABAD: The independent women contestants outnumbered the combined tally of women candidates fielded by the political parties for the Neighborhood and Village Councils in the second phase of local government elections being held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on March 31.

Overall, the independent female candidates constitute 51pc as against 27pc and 22pc women fielded by liberal and religious parties respectively.

This was revealed by Pattan, an NGO that works for democracy, human rights and gender equality in a report released here on Sunday.

It said reserved seats remained vacant or being won without any contest, a phenomenon that had also been seen in the first phase of the polls.

According to Pattan, lack of political will appears to be mainly responsible for low rate of female participation in local elections.

The second phase of local election shows that on an average only 1.76 female candidates are in the field against one seat, while seat to candidate ratio on other categories of seats is much high. For instance, on average there are 10 candidates against one seat for chairmen/mayor category.

Pattan argues that prior conditions (female literacy rate, human development level, women’s participation in labour force and access to public life, etc.,) appear to have played a major role in determining the level of women’s participation in the election.

Because of the existing differentiation, women’s participation as candidates varies from district to district. For instance, in Lower and Upper Kohistan – extremely poor and underdeveloped districts --about 90pc women seats remained vacant.

In Battagram, out of total 90 female seats as many as 71 or 79pc remained vacant.

In South Waziristan too, more than 68pc of female seats remained vacant, while in Abbottabad, only 32 or 15pc of the 209 seats are vacant.

In Upper Chitral, female candidates did not leave a single seat vacant.

However, there appears significant variations across districts.

For instance, share of religious parties is higher than liberal parties in six districts - Mansehra 16pc, North Waziristan 36pc and Kurram 36pc, and Orakzai 32%. The liberal parties have clear edge over religious parties in eight districts - Upper Chitral 33pc, Lower Dir 49pc, Malakand 44pc, Shangla 43pc, Swat 50pc and Upper Dir 57pc.

In 11 districts the independent candidates constitute clear majority in comparison to combined strength of all parties.

In Abbottabad 88pc, Battagram 94pc, Upper Chitral 56pc, Lower Chitral 64pc, Mansehra 84pc, North Waziristan 53pc, South Waziristan 81pc, Orakzai 56pc, and Shangla 50pc.

Analysis of the contestation data (ECP Form X List of Contesting Candidates) also reveals some interesting socio-political trends:

1) High participation of female candidates even in the conservative or traditional districts than the combined female candidates of political parties is a clear sign of emergence of new social forces that are ready to play an important role in local governance.

2) Political parties appear to be ignorant of their emergence and have little appetite to broaden and deepen democracy and to avail this opportunity.

3) Political parties seem to be more interested in top positions i.e. mayors and chairpersons than in the quota seats of the marginalised sections of the society.

4) As a large number of women seats will remain vacant even after by-election female populations of many Neighborhood and Village Councils of KPK are likely to be deprived of women representatives.

Pattan’s analysis is primarily based on the ECP’s Form X (list of contesting candidates) of 17 districts.

The Pattan in it’s recommendations said the ECP should make available data and forms of every election promptly.

It said political parties need to invest resources to set up party chapters at grassroots level and must also hold internal party election and ECP should monitor their polling processes.

It also said civil society, women groups and trade unions should plan to field candidates against quota seats.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2022