Withholding PK-95 winner’s notification leads to women voting in Upper Dir

PESHAWAR: The women in Upper Dir district were allowed to cast votes in the recent PK-93 by-election after the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) withheld the notification of Aizazul Mulk Afkari as Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) from PK-95 constituency in Lower Dir due to complaints that female voters were prevented from voting.
Though only 3,807 of the 57,708 registered women voters cast ballots in the PK-93 by-election held on September 15, it validated the election process and its result was duly notified by the ECP.
According to the district returning officer for the PK-93 Upper Dir by-election, 13,120 polling stations were specified for women. Though only six percent of them came out of homes to vote, Dir saw women casting their ballots after almost four and a half decades. The women in Dir, which used to be one district before being split into Upper and Lower Dir, had last voted in the 1970 general election.
In Dir, the political parties have always inked agreements to bar women from casting votes. Such deals were made by both secular and religious political parties.
It may be recalled that the ECP withheld the notification of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI)’s winning candidate Aizazul Mulk Afkari, who returned to the provincial assembly from PK-95 Lower Dir in the by-election, when the members of the civil society organisations protested the disfranchisement of women voters in the by-polls.
Sensing the situation, the political parties, including the JI, avoided striking any deal to stop women from voting in the subsequent by-election for PK-93 Upper Dir.
The women voters showed up at 4pm at four polling stations in Wari, the main town in the constituency.
According to locals, the JI asked its women members and supporters in Wari to come to the polling stations and cast votes. A large number of women thronged the four polling stations at Government Primary School Kakad, Government Girls High School Wari Payeen, Government High School Wari Bala and Government Primary School Wari Payeen.
Other political parties also brought out women voters.
The workers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and other political parties clashed over the issue of not allowing women to cast votes after the closing time.
Though JI’s Azam Khan lost the by-election to Pakistan People’s Party’s Sahibzada Sanaullah, the fact that women were able to vote helped validate the election.
The seat fell vacant in July this year after the Election Tribunal disqualified JI’s Behram Khan for having a fake degree. His son Azam Khan was awarded the JI ticket for contesting the by-election against PPP’s Sahibzada Sanaullah, who was supported by the ANP, JUI-F and PML-N.
The ECP has issued the notification of Sahibzada Sanaullah, but it is yet to notify Aizazul Mulk Afkari as MPA because women were not allowed to cast votes in the PK-93 by-election.