WOMEN IN POLITICS – PROBLEMS OF

PARTICIPATION: A CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN Dr. Dushka H. Saiyid*

Pakistan came into being as a result of a popular movement amongst the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent. Muslim women played a major role in the freedom movement. The founder of the country, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, was responsible for bringing Muslim women out of their homes to participate in the movement for Pakistan. He is on record for saying that the emancipation of Muslim men is not possible unless Muslim women are involved in this struggle as equal partners. When the movement for Pakistan gathered momentum, Muslim women came out on the streets and were active in the demonstrations and agitations that took place for the creation of Pakistan. The Muslim Students Federation, which played an important role in mobilising the student community for the Pakistan Movement, had a large contingent of girl students as its members.1 What the Quaid had achieved was unprecedented, and amounted to a social revolution. The cultural norms of the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent discouraged women from going out of their homes, and at the time it was unthinkable for women to venture out of their homes for political purposes. The constant presence of Fatima Jinnah, the Quaid’s sister, was not accidental, but a message by this visionary leader, that women should be equal partners in politics, and that they should not be confined to the traditional home-bound role of a wife and a mother. It is not surprising then that he was constantly under attack of the orthodox religious parties. Once, so the story goes, he was about to address a mammoth public meeting, and was requested not to have Fatima Jinnah sitting on the dais by his side. He refused. It was this tradition and culture of keeping women in seclusion and not allowing them to participate in any activity outside their homes, which made it necessary to have some kind of an affirmative action about women’s representation in the assemblies. To meet this need, the 1935 Government of India Act instituted reserved seats for women. Under this Act, only women could vote for Muslim women’s seats.2 The women’s representatives had demanded a 10% quota of reserved seats for women at the Franchise Committee of the Round Table Conference in 1935. However, they were only awarded a 3% quota, but the principle of representation of women in Parliament through special seats was accepted for the first time, however minuscule the numbers. Eventually, the Constituent Assembly, which came into existence after the birth of Pakistan in 1947, adopted adult franchise for the country in 1951.3 The first Constituent Assembly had only two women representatives, Shaista Ikramullah and Jahanara Shahnawaz, but notwithstanding the numbers, that itself was a revolutionary development. There was also a demand in the Constituent Assembly for 3% of reserved seats for women in the Central and Provincial Assemblies.4 The Constituent Assembly was dissolved in 1954 and a new assembly elected through indirect elections, with the two provincial assemblies serving as electoral colleges. No women were able to get elected. Consequently, there were no women in the assembly who could have contributed to making the Constitution of 1956.5 However, the Constitution of 1956 accepted the principle of female suffrage and women’s reserved seats. Women were to have dual voting rights, for they could now vote for the general seats and also for the women’s reserved seats. General Ayub Khan abolished the Constitution of 1956 when he seized power in a military coup in 1958. For ten years the country experienced autocratic rule in which the assemblies, both central and provincial, were elected by the easily manipulated local bodies. In the Constitution of 1962, female suffrage on the basis of women’s territorial constituencies was abolished, and the women were to be elected by the assemblies through indirect elections. Only six women sat in the Assemblies and were too beholden to the President to be able to give proper representation to women.6 The most important event, which changed the electoral landscape for women, was when Miss Fatima Jinnah decided to contest the elections for the President’s office in 1965. She was challenging the incumbent President Ayub Khan in the indirect elections, which Ayub had instituted. Since she was the Quaid-i-Azam’s sister, she was held in high esteem, and had the support of the Combined Opposition Parties (COP). She drew enormous crowds in all the cities of East and West Pakistan. In all probability she would have won the elections, but the Electoral College consisted of only 80,000 Basic Democrats, who were easily manipulated. The importance of this election, which was rigged otherwise, lay in the fact that a woman was contesting the highest political office of the country. It is widely held that if the elections had been honest she would have won them. The orthodox religious political parties, including the Jamaat-e-Islami led by Maulana Maudoodi, which had repeatedly declared that a woman could not hold the highest office of a Muslim country, then modified their stand and supported the candidature of Miss Fatima Jinnah, popularly acclaimed as the ‘Madar-e-Millat’ (the Mother of the Nation) for her role in the Freedom Movement. That election showed that there was no prejudice among the people against women holding high offices of the country, and women, indeed, could be key players in politics of the country. Women and students played a major role in the popular movement, which erupted across the country against Field Marshal Ayub’s regime, in favour of democracy. When the elections of 1970 took place, a large percentage of women came out to vote. They had become heavily involved with the political parties, in particular the Pakistan Peoples Party of Mr. Bhutto and the Awami League of East Pakistan.7 Women in large numbers manned the polling booths. PPP had a special appeal for women, for the manifesto of the party had specially dealt with the issues affecting them. Women voted overwhelmingly for the PPP, sometimes defying their husbands to do so. When the Constitution Committee was formed in 1972, three ladies, Nasim Jahan, Mrs Jennifer Qazi and Begum Ashraf Abassi were made its members. The Constitution of 1973 gave more rights to women than ever before. Article 25 not only provided for equality before the law but also talked about there being no discrimination on the basis of race, religion, caste or sex. (The long-standing demand for a reserved number of seats for women was rejected, and again they were to be elected indirectly by the members of the Assembly.) While it becomes clear that women have played a major role in the politics of Pakistan, and have provided leadership on occasion, their level of participation remains limited. In successive assemblies there have been women representatives, but the few that have managed to get there are from a very narrow privileged section of the society. Most of them have inherited their constituency from their family. At the popular level there is no bias electing women leaders. Apart from Fatima Jinnah, there was Benazir Bhutto, who was elected the Islamic World’s first woman Prime Minister in 1988. In NWFP, a socially conservative province, Begum Nasim Wali Khan, was the leader of the opposition in the provincial assembly. As far back as 1970, Baluchistan elected an Irish-woman as a member of the National Assembly (MNA). Their gender was hardly an issue, although their opponents tried to make it so. In these cases, even the religious conservatives had no qualms in supporting women leaders. Fatima Jinnah was backed by the Jamaat-e-Islami, while Benazir Bhutto had the support of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam. However, despite this role of women political leaders since 1947, the representation of women in the assemblies has never reached a double figure. The question then arises as to why women continue to be marginalised in the political process, despite the adoption of adult franchise. The answer lies in the traditional culture norms of the society, reflected in the very low literacy rate for women (about 30%), and the lack of will of the successive governments to increase women’s participation in the political process. Under-Registration Women are under-registered, and the percentage of registered women continues to be much lower than that of men. The gap was 20% when adult franchise was adopted in the 1950s; it dropped to 12% just before the elections of 1970, and to 8% by the time of the 1988 elections. Between 1993 and 1997, the percentage of difference between men and women registered voters had increased to 10%. The problem of registering women voters is particularly severe in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which was given the right of vote to women as late as 1997, although, given the conservative social norms of that area, it remained in theory and not in practice.8 Despite a drive to register women by various NGOs, the male-female ratio of registered voters was 75 and 25, when the national ratio was 55 and 45. The resistance to register is largely because of the deep-rooted tradition of seclusion of women. The men do not like their women to reveal their names to male enumerators, and the act of leaving the home to go and cast votes is also viewed with distrust, since it is the beginning of the breakdown of the seclusion in which the women are kept. Another problem is the low turnout of women voters. This can be caused by a whole host of problems that the women might face. If the polling station is at a distance, women are less likely to be able to reach it. As mentioned further in the paper, in the NWFP, FATA and Baluchistan, the political parties, or their candidates, sometimes reach an understanding amongst them not to bring their women voters out to vote, as happened in the case of FATA and parts of Baluchistan. Identity cards are necessary in order to be eligible as a voter.9 The procedure for acquiring an ID card is tedious and requires filling of forms and going to offices to get it made, tasks which cannot be done without the help and cooperation of the men of the family. Getting an ID card for women, as opposed to men, is generally considered a low priority. General Seats and Reserved Seats No woman contested on a general seat for Parliament before the elections of 1970. The 1970 elections were the first one in Pakistan’s history held on the basis of adult franchise. The 1965 Presidential elections were held on an indirect basis, with 80,000 directly elected members of local councils forming the electoral college for the Presidency, a system obviously more susceptible to official manipulation. In 1970, the two major parties, which swept the elections in the two wings of the country, gave no ticket to any woman candidate.10 However, nine women did contest the general seats as independents, but lost. Since 1970, 107 women have contested the elections on the general seats, but only 24 have been successful. It was because of this dismal level of representation of women in the national and provincial legislatures, that the need arose for a more affirmative action. Given this track record of low participation and representation of women in Parliament, a certain quota of seats was specially reserved for women in Parliament. This pattern predates Pakistan’s creation since seats were reserved for women from the 1946 elections onwards. This reservation of seats for women continued to be required in the 1956, 1962 and 1973 Constitutions, although the 1973 Constitution fixed reservation for women for two more general elections or ten years, whichever came later, and then the provision was to expire.11 This Constitutional provision lapsed after the 1988 elections. There were no reserved seats for women in the Senate. This Constitutional provision, passed in 1973, provided for 10% reserved seats for women in the National Assembly and 5% in the Provincial Assemblies. However this provision expired in the 1990 elections and has not been revised since.12 Despite commitments by both the major political parties, the women’s reserved seats have not been restored. There is a general consensus among women’s organisations and other liberal bodies that given the depressed condition of women in Pakistan, in order to improve their representation in the Assemblies and policy-making bodies, it is necessary to have greater and sustained affirmative action. There was also a consensus against the indirect method of elections of women for the reserved seats, as the women continue to be dependent on the male members of the Assemblies and unable to be their own effective representatives.13 In the Report of the Commission of Inquiry for Women of Pakistan, there was also a demand against electing women from separate electorates because it would not help in bringing women into the political mainstream. In the 1995 elections, there were only 25 million registered female voters as opposed to 30 million registered male voters. An even smaller percentage actually exercised the right of vote as compared to men.14 The obstacles that women face in the exercise of their franchise are manifold. In some areas, like the NWFP, it is common for the rival parties to come to an agreement not to let the women vote. In the 1997 elections, a jirga in the newly enfranchised FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) decided that women would not be allowed to vote. Announcements were made through loudspeakers in the mosques that voting by women was un-Islamic, and the houses of those who insisted on voting would be burnt down. As a consequence, only 37 out of 6,600 registered women voted in Jamrud in the Khyber Agency.15 In the same 1997 elections, both the major parties of the country, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League, fielded very few women for the elections. The PPP awarded tickets to only 9 women out of a total of 161 candidates, and the PML put up 6 female candidates out of a total number of 177 candidates. In the National Assembly elected in 1993, there were only 4 women in a house of 217 members, and in the Senate, only 2 out of 83 members. The representation in the National Assembly went up marginally when the women representatives went up from 4 to 6 in the National Assembly of 1997. It has been argued that this poor representation of women is due to the lack of commitment on the part of the political parties. However, the political parties argue that the women are reluctant to come forward for participation. A close study of the 1997 elections was carried out, which looked into the problems faced by women voters in the different provinces of Pakistan.16 The study relied on the data supplied by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). What made the study interesting was that it highlighted which problem was more important in each province. Amongst the problems it lists are, poor arrangements at the polling booths, votes sold and other irregularities, lack of awareness about voting procedure by polling staff, discrepancy in names, women not turning up to vote, women not allowed to vote, lack of awareness about voting procedures by women voters.17 In the Punjab, according to this report, 42% of the problem was that the ‘voting arrangements for women were not adequate’. The staff at the polling booths had not turned up on time, there were not adequate purdah arrangements, or there were men conducting the elections in women’s booths.18 ‘Votes sold and other irregularities’ constituted 22% of the problem. Similarly in Sindh the largest category of problems was the same as the Punjab, that the ‘voting arrangements for women were not adequate’. ‘Votes sold and other irregularities’ constituted another 29% of the problems recorded in Sindh. In the NWFP and Baluchistan provinces, the obstacles faced by women’s participation were similar. The ‘women did not turn up to vote’ category constituted 32% of the problems in NWFP, and ‘votes sold and other irregularities’ constituted another 27% of the problem.19 The severity of the seclusion practised in Baluchistan is reflected in the figure of 65% of the problem was that ‘women did not turn up to vote’ in the elections. The comparison of these provinces with the federal capital is also interesting. In Islamabad, almost half the problem was that of ‘discrepancies in names’ between the name on the ID card and the voters list, and ‘voting arrangements for women were not adequate’. Devolution and the Participation of Women The military regime, which took power in October 1999, announced its plans for devolution of the government. It awarded 33% seats to women in the district councils. The elections for the women’s seats were to be fought from the general and not separate constituencies. It met with a great deal of opposition from the more conservative sections of the population, but many of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), especially the women’s NGOs lobbied hard for it. An organisation by the name of Citizens Campaign for Women Representation (CCWR) in local government was formed. This organisation formed District Coordination Committees mainly to ensure the full participation of women. The results in the first phase, when elections in eighteen districts were held, were quite satisfactory. The first phase of the local bodies elections came to an end on December 31, 2000. 4857 women were elected from 956 union councils of 18 districts.20 It was unprecedented in the history of Pakistan that women should contest direct elections to the local bodies, and that too from joint electorates. They were given 33% representation at the union council, sub-divisional council and district council. For 5736 seats, 7609 women filed their papers, and 4857 women were elected. It is expected that at the end of the fifth phase of the elections, in 103 divisions and in over 7000 union councils, 4200 women will be elected and will join the mainstream of national politics.21 It was in the second phase that they ran into difficulties. The females filed their nomination papers in significant numbers, but the religious groups in the Swabi district decided to launch a campaign against the candidature of females.22 A letter from the Peshawar CCWR to the Chief Executive referred to reports in the press that the clerics of Swabi District had threatened to launch a movement to force the female candidates to withdraw their nominations, as they considered it against the teachings of Islam. First of all they were going to force the female candidates for the Jalabai Union Council. This decision was taken at a jirga held in the Jalabai Central Mosque. The letter drew the attention of the Chief Executive to the fact that these elements were denying the people from exercising their constitutional rights. Quoting from the ‘North-Western Frontier Province Local Government Election Order 2000’, the letter declared this act as ‘illegal and punishable’. 23 The letter called for timely intervention by the Chief Executive as otherwise these elements would cause trouble in other districts also. There were similar incidents in the Mardan District also.24 Another letter from the provincial steering committee of the CCWR in Peshawar mentioned that their organisation had been trying to field a maximum number of candidates for seats reserved for females, but were facing stiff resistance from these elements who were holding open meetings and pressurizing their family members and harassing the females to withdraw from the contest. Those women who got elected as councillors have been asked to resign. Conclusion Pakistan’s experiments with democracy and representative government have not been very encouraging for women. The tradition of reserved seats helped in bringing women representatives to the assemblies, but until 1990 they had only 10% seats in the National Assembly and 5% seats in the provincial assemblies. 25 Those few who represented women in the assemblies were either from politically influential families who had inherited the constituencies of their forefathers, or had ingratiated themselves with the ruler of the day. Even the election of a woman Prime Minister in 1988 and 1993 did not make a significant difference to the marginalisation of women in politics. Since 1990, women’s reserved seats have ceased to exist, and as a result women’s representation in the assemblies has fallen so low, that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. With women’s literacy level as low as about 30%, it is not surprising that women’s registration, turnout at elections and the practical difficulties they accost in polling, continue to hinder their participation. The recent decision of the military regime to have 33% seats for women at the local government level will go a long way in increasing the participation of women in politics in Pakistan. Their increased participation will make decision-making at the local government level more gender sensitive, and would prepare the ground for a similar change at the national level. References *.

Dr. Dushka H. Saiyid is an Associate Professor at the Department of History, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Dushka H. Saiyid, Muslim Women of the British Punjab: From Seclusion to Politics, London; Macmillan, 1998, p. 92. Dr. Inayatullah, ‘A Historical Perspective on Women’s Participation in Politics in Pakistan: Moving Towards Change’, Savera Monograph, June 1999, pp.15-16. Ibid. p. 24. Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed, Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Backward, Lahore; Vanguard, 1987, p. 56. Inayatullah, ‘Moving Towards Change’, op.cit., June 1999, p. 22. Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed, Women of Pakistan, op. cit., p. 60. Ibid. p. 62. Inayatullah, op. cit., p. 25. Ibid. Ibid. p. 29. Dr. Safdar Mahmood, Constitutional Foundations of Pakistan, Lahore; Jang Publishers, 1997, p. 861. Ibid. p. 11. Ibid. p. 12. Report of the Commission of Inquiry for Women of Pakistan, August 1997, Chapter 2, ‘Political Participation’, p. 9. Ibid. p. 10. Sarah Inayatullah, ‘Supporting Democratic Electoral Processes: Problems Faced by Women Voters in Pakistan (National Elections-1997)’, Savera Monograph, May 2000. Ibid. p. 7. Ibid. p. 15. Ibid. p. 23. ‘Participation of women in the first phase of the local bodies elections’, Resource Service-Legislative Watch Program, Aurat Foundation, Islamabad. Ibid. Letter from the Citizens Campaign for Women Representation in Local Government, Peshawar, NWFP, dated 27-2-2001, Ref/2001/062, to the Chief Executive of Pakistan. Subject: ‘Harassment of Female Candidates’. Ibid. Ref/2001/072 dated 16/3/2001, letter from Aimal Khan, Secretary, PSC, CCWR, Peshawar to the Chief Election Commissioner. ‘The Necessity of Women’s Reserved Seats in Parliament’, Legislative Watch, Quarterly Newsletter, Issue No. 4, Aurat Publication. Back to Top