More than 1.5mn overseas women voters can change political scenario in 11 cities

• 220 constituencies across the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies have many registered women voters.
• More than 0.7 million (754,054) female overseas voters can also play a vital role in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. 
• The number of potential overseas female voters is slightly above 300,000 in Karachi. 

ISLAMABAD: If the newly proposed election law gets the Parliament's endorsement, more than 1.5mn overseas women voters can play a key role in changing the country's political dynamics across 11 cities of Pakistan. 

Geo News exclusively accessed official figures from the relevant authorities (ECP and NADRA) which disclosed that as many as 227 constituencies (NA and PAs) have the maximum number of registered women voters who could exercise their right to vote since they are in possession of National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP).

These overseas women voters, who lived with their families in nearly 140 countries, witnessed the highest gender gap between male and female NICOP holders in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with a difference of 88%, followed by Punjab with 68%, revealed the official data. 

Balochistan and Sindh have a difference of 60 and 40% respectively. These female voters can vote for 248 national and provincial assembly constituencies. The female voters make only 15% of nearly 10 million potential overseas voters, according to official data.

The data findings and their difference is not at all surprising, considering that a large number of overseas Pakistanis across the world are labourers. 

The International Labor Organization and Bureau of Emigration & Overseas Employment’s figures reveal that during the period of 1971 to 2021, only 42,534 females were registered for overseas employment, compared to over 11 million males. 

As many as 1.1 million out of 1.5 million, potential female voters belong to 16 districts that include Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujrat, Islamabad, Jhelum, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Attock, Multan and six districts of Karachi, official figures stated. These districts collectively have around 36 million registered voters.

More than 0.7 million (754,054) female overseas voters could also play an even more vital role in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi, which have 42 seats in NA and 62 seats of PAs of Sindh and Punjab, according to official figures.

These official numbers reveal that Karachi has 8.4 million registered voters, compared to that, the number of potential overseas female voters is slightly above 300,000, spread over six districts and 21 NA constituencies.

Karachi Central, with its four NA constituencies, has the highest number of overseas female voters with 129,862 NICOP holders, followed by Karachi East with 80,073 NICOP holders in four NA constituencies, suggested the data. 

Karachi South has 56,273 female voters in two NA seats, stated the data. This means in each of the 10 constituencies of these districts, between 15 to 30,000 additional female votes could be in play. In the other three districts, the number of potential female voters is less than 20,000, according to the official data.

Politics in Punjab can also be affected by overseas women voters. As per the data, Rawalpindi, Gujrat and Lahore are some of the districts where the overseas women voters can make a huge impact.  

These districts have 214,157, 141,802 and 118,041 potential voters respectively, which is not that significant in comparison to registered voters in these districts that are 5.9 million in Lahore, 3.2 million in Rawalpindi and 2 million in Gujrat, according to official figures.

The other six districts of Punjab with high numbers of potential overseas voters, namely Jhelum, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Attock and Multan have between 23,000 to 68,000 potential female voters, less likely to have any major impact, according to official figures. 

Islamabad has 57,953 NICOP holders who could impact the results in its three NA constituencies, revealed the data.

The impact of female voters, however, will depend on their turnout, the significance of their numbers in each constituency, domestic voters turnout and another key factor: how closely fought are the constituencies where they are present in large numbers. 

Official figures continued to reveal that more than 2.2 million (2,281,010) overseas NICOP holders have their roots in KPK. As many as 2.1 million (2,157,505) male and 123,505 female overseas voters are registered with the NADRA.

Nearly 35,274 females and 137,155 males overseas voters are registered from Balochistan, adding a total of 172,429 expats belonging to the said province, according to official statistics.