Traditions, women and elections

One bad tribal tradition involving women was partially broken on this Election Day. Candidates from different political parties, including the PPP, the PML-N, JUI-F and JI, contesting NA-43 and 44, the two National Assembly seats in Bajaur Agency, decided at a meeting in Khar on Wednesday to encourage local women to cast their votes. The decision, of course, did not come naturally to the conservative tribal leaders. PPP and PML-N representatives did much of the convincing, telling the meeting that in the past women were not allowed to cast their votes in line with tribal traditions, but that the situation had changed. There is a need, they said, to "let our women exercise their right to vote without let or hindrance."
It is not only in Bajaur that women have remained disenfranchised. In some of the settled areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa such as Dir district, even in certain areas of Punjab, women for long have been denied the right to vote on the pretext of traditions. Major parties, like the PPP and PML-N, championing women's rights in mainstream politics, repeatedly made unsavoury compromises with local elders who would not allow women's participation. A few determined women in Dir who insisted on casting their votes during the last elections were forcibly stopped from doing so. Not a single vote was cast at 564 of 28,800 women's polling stations in the 2008 general election. Things are now undergoing change in Fata, Dir and everywhere else because the traditions that served the men dominating local power structures threaten their own electoral prospects. As per a new Election Commission rule, election results are to be cancelled in constituencies where the number of women casting votes is less than ten percent of the registered female voters. Where neither laws nor persuasion could work, self-interest has altered attitudes within no time. The Bajaur men unanimously decided to dump a tradition they had held so sacrosanct as soon as they realised it had outlived its utility for them.
It is an interesting example of how traditions are upheld or discarded by those dominating societies. As for women themselves, there is no question about their eagerness to participate not only as voters but also as candidates. Two women are contesting general seats in Fata. They are unlikely to win, but the very act is an important testimony about their aspirations to be equal participants in the democratic process. The Election Commission and the local administrations have the responsibility to create conditions that would facilitate women's voting. One important requirement, overlooked in a recent by-election in Balochistan, is that of separate polling stations for female voters. It also needs to be ensured that people, especially women, feel safe enough to come out of their homes and cast votes for candidates of their choice.