In historic first, two women contest ex-FATA election

Two women have stepped up to contest the provincial election being held in ex-Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Geo News reported.

FATA was finally merged into KP in May 2018 after then president Mamnoon Hussain signed the 25th Constitutional Amendment Bill into law.

People of the tribal districts on Saturday are casting a ballot for the first time to elect members of the provincial assembly on sixteen seats up for grabs in seven newly-merged districts.

In the 16 constituencies up for grabs, almost all contestants are men; however, two women from the Awami National Party (ANP) and Jamaate Islami (JI) have stepped up to give them a tough time.

Naheed Afridi from the ANP is hoping for a win in Khyber district’s PK-106. There are a total of 148,470 voters in this constituency, of which 65,652 (44 per cent) are female.

JI’s Malasa Bibi, on the other hand, is running for PK-109 of the Kurram district. In her constituency, there are 187,844 voters in all, of which 82,560 are women.

The two women are breaking barriers by contesting the election in extremely conservative tribal districts where women have not always been allowed to even cast their votes.