Eighteen of the 115 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Assembly (PA) constituencies recorded a voter registration gender gap exceeding the legally permissible threshold of 10 percent, according to the constituency-wise electoral rolls published by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on 3 February 2026.
During the 2018 general elections, 88 of the then-99 PA constituencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, representing 88.9 percent of the provincial total at that time, recorded a voter registration gender gap above 10 percent. The KP Provincial Assembly was subsequently expanded from 99 to 115 constituencies after the merger of tribal districts in the province in 2018. By the time of the 2024 elections, the number of non-compliant constituencies had fallen sharply to 24, representing 20.9 percent of the expanded provincial total. The reduction of 64 constituencies from the non-compliant category between 2018 and 2024 reflected a significant improvement in women’s voter registration across the province, though the comparison across two different assembly sizes requires care in interpretation.
The post-2024 period has produced only limited further progress. Six constituencies reduced their gender gap below the 10 percent threshold following the 2024 elections, bringing the current number of non-compliant PA constituencies to 18, representing 15.7 percent of the provincial total. As of the most recent ECP data, 97 of KP’s 115 PA constituencies record a gender gap at or below the 10 percent threshold, representing 84.3 percent of the province.
While the overall trajectory reflects a substantial decline — from 88.9 percent of constituencies above the legal threshold in 2018 to 15.7 percent in 2026 — the pace of improvement has slowed considerably in the post-election period. The reduction of only six constituencies since the 2024 elections, against the dramatic pre-election improvement of 64, suggests a risk of stagnation in constituencies where the gender gap has proved most resistant to change. The persistence of non-compliance in 18 constituencies is a reflection of structural, administrative, and sociocultural barriers that continue to obstruct women’s equitable inclusion in the electoral process in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
What the Elections Act requires
The continued presence of a gap of this nature underscores the need for sustained institutional action. Section 47(1) of the Elections Act, 2017 requires the ECP to annually publish disaggregated data of registered male and female voters in each constituency and to highlight the difference in their numbers. Under Section 47(2), the Commission must take special measures in any constituency where this difference exceeds 10 percent, including measures to reduce this variation. Section 47(3) further specifies that these measures shall include action by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to expedite National Identity Card (NIC) issuance for women in affected constituencies, and by the ECP to enroll them as voters in the relevant electoral area. This provision places a clear, joint institutional responsibility on both NADRA and the ECP to address the gender gap where it crosses the legal threshold.
These measures include targeted voter registration campaigns, NIC facilitation drives, and community-level outreach to address the barriers that continue to limit women’s registration. Consistent implementation of these provisions is critical to ensuring that the downward trend in KP’s gender gap is sustained and accelerated in the electoral rolls ahead of the next general elections.
