Call to reduce gender gap in voters’ list

ISLAMABAD: The Coalition for Elections and Democracy (CED) has stressed the need to reduce gender gap between number of registered voters in Pakistan. The situation is perturbing as the gap between number of male and female voters has crossed 12 million.
In a statement issued by CED on National Voters’ Day Raja Shoaib Akbar, Senior Programme Manager at Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) said that the voter data trends were alarming because the gender gap had expanded by two million to the disadvantage of female voters since 2013. It is estimated that the voters’ list will have well over 100 million citizens and the gap between male and female voters is feared to increase further.
While referring to the provisional census data he stated that female population was slightly over 50% but their percentage in electoral rolls has not touched 44%, this situation warrants drastic measures.
The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), political parties and civil society need to work jointly to bridge this gap.