EC declared results in NA-10 despite zero turnout of women

ISLAMABAD: Election Commission (EC) of Pakistan declared results in NA-10 in General Elections 2024 despite the fact that not a single woman cast her vote in 84 or 28% of the polling stations set up for female voters only and combined for both genders, in NA-10 and its three provincial constituencies, says the research done by the audit team of PATTAN-Coalition 38.

The huge void was discovered by the team while conducting the audit of the result forms available on the ECP website till the filing of the press release. Moreover, it shows that the results of eight (8) polling stations in NA-10 were unavailable on the ECP website during our audit.

The audit says that the same pattern was found in the three associated provincial constituencies e.g. PK-26; PK-27 and PK-28 which fall under NA10. “Yet the Election Commission declared the final consolidated results of the constituencies without holding legally required enquiry and re-polling. This was a brazen failure of the ECP for not responding to a clear violation of Section 9 of the Elections Act 2017,” says the statement issued by PATTAN-Coalition 38, a network of CSOs, labour unions, CBOs, and intellectuals.

It says that the pledge of the Chief Election Commissioner ‘to eliminate the gender gap among voters by the next general election,’ a pledge issued the wake of the Working Women’s Day celebrations, seems to be hollow. The audit further shows that the case of women’s participation in voting was further examined in terms of female voters’ turnout from two angles including total polled votes and total registered votes. It says that in both cases, results reveal extremely disturbing trends.

“For instance, in terms of female registered voters’ turnout, at 100 or 33% of female and combined polling stations was either zero or less than 10%. While the female voter’s turnout was either zero or less than 10% of the polled votes in as many as 74 combined polling stations. This reveals the extent of gross under-participation of women in polling in the above-mentioned constituencies,” says the statement.

It says that the absence of female voters at such a large scale is highly likely to be the result of enforced restraints on women to cast their votes and cannot be considered an outcome of voluntary choices.

The Section 9 of the Elections Act 2017 makes it mandatory and categorically instructs the ECP that: (a) before declaring the final results hold the enquiry to assess the material impact of the women’s voters’ absenteeism and low turnouts on the poll results, and (b) based on the enquiry to hold the re-polling in the affected polling stations or whole of the constituency.

“We are of the considered opinion that similar deficits are likely to surface in some other constituencies of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa too. Therefore, a comprehensive audit of the ECP result forms is the need of the hour, and this is the only way to rebuild the trust of the stakeholders in the ECP working. We urge the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to take notice of the failure of the ECP in this regard, initiate an investigation and punish the responsible officials for this gross misconduct and negligence,” demands the statement issued by the Coalition besides appealing women’s rights groups, civil society organisations and political parties to make it a test case for improving electoral governance in Pakistan.