Pakistan Review News and Reviews

Participation of Women in General Election 2002.

Women are more then 50% population of our country. In the up coming elections 2002 the reserved seats for women are increased. Previously there were 20 seats reserved for women in national assembly now there are 60 seats for them. In provincial assemblies there were collectively seats 23 for women and now this figure is 128. This situation has brought out increase participation of women in upcoming elections.

Following is the table of the women seats in national and provincial assemblies

No of seats in national assembly.

Province	No. of previous seats	No of present seats
Punjab	11	35
Sindh	5	14
NWFP	3	8
Baluchistan	1	3
FATA	0	0
Islamabad	0	0
Total	20	60

Number of seats in provincial assemblies.

Province	No of previous seats	No of present Seats
Punjab	12	66
Sindh	5	29
NWFP	4	22
Balucistan	2	11
Total	23	128

Women candidates for reserved seats in national assembly:

For 60 reserved seats of women in national assembly there are 281 women in field. Following is the table that shows the participation of women candidates in the General Elections 2002.

For 35 reserved women seats of National Assembly from the Punjab, there are 135 candidates.

For 14 reserved seats for women of National Assembly from Sindh there are 79 candidates in the field.

According to the data, for the 8 reserved seats for women for National Assembly from NWFP there are 45 candidates.

For the three reserved seats for women in the National Assembly from Balochistan there are 22 candidates.

As a whole there are 281 women candidates for 60 seats of national assembly.

Province	No. of reserved Seats for national assembly.	No. of candidates.
Punjab	35	135
Sindh	14	79
NWFP	8	45
Baluchistan	3	22
Total reserved seats in national assembly.	60	281.

Women candidates for reserved seats in provincial assemblies:

For the 66 reserved seats for women in Punjab Assembly there are 261 candidates.

For 29 seats reserved for women in Sindh Assembly there are 210 candidates.

For 22 reserved seats for women in NWFP Assembly there are 126 candidates.

There are 11 seats reserved for women in provincial assembly of Baluchistan for which the final number of women contestants is not known yet.

The table shows the number of women in field for reserved seats for women in provincial assemblies.

Province	No. of reserved Seats.	No. of candidates.
Punjab	66	261
Sindh	29	210
NWFP	22	126
Baluchistan	11	n/a
Total reserved seats in provincial assemblies.	128

So collectively there are 188 seats reserved for women in national and provincial assemblies for which more than 878 women are in field.

Note:

This data shows the participation of women for reserved seats in national and provincial assemblies, apart from those who are candidates on general seats.