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Pakistan electoral reform plans aim to boost women's participation in politics

by Waqar Mustafa | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Tuesday, 7 February 2017 15:15 GMT

Afghan women, clad in burqas, stand outside a shop at a market in Peshawar, Pakistan June 29, 2016. REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz

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"Various studies have shown that women elected on reserved seats have done a good job in the legislatures. They have put up good human rights legislations"

By Waqar Mustafa

LAHORE, Pakistan, Feb 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Reforms to Pakistan's electoral laws making it mandatory for political parties to allot five percent of their tickets to women candidates were approved on Tuesday by the federal cabinet, the country's highest decision-making body.

Under Pakistan's constitution, women are guaranteed seats through a quota system in the national parliament and regional assemblies in Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.

At present, 60 out of 342 seats in the National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, are reserved for women with a further 137 seats reserved for women in the four provincial assemblies.

However the reforms will pave the way for more women politicians.

Women's rights campaigners welcomed the move by the cabinet of ministers, headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but said the quota should be increased.

"Various studies have shown that women elected on reserved seats have done a good job in the legislatures. They have put up good human rights legislations," said Nasreen Azhar, a founder member of Women Action Forum, a women's rights organization.

"But they are considered weak because they don't have the backing of voters. Now things will improve but the quota should at least be 10 percent," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on phone from Islamabad, where her organisation is based.

Briefing media on the decisions taken by the cabinet, Law Minister Zahid Hamid said the electoral reforms were due to be presented before the National Assembly next month where they are expected to be passed.

Last month, the Senate passed a law seeking a re-election in constituencies where women's turnout is less than 10 percent in an effort to address disparities in the number of women who go out to vote in the socially conservative country.

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