Twenty-five of the 51 Balochistan 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, 45 PA constituencies in Balochistan — representing 88.2 percent of the provincial total — recorded a voter registration gender gap above 10 percent. Balochistan recorded the highest proportion of non-compliant constituencies of any province in the country at that time, underscoring the pervasive and systemic nature of the electoral gender disparity across the province.
By the 2024 general elections, 15 constituencies had reduced their gender gap below the legal threshold, bringing the number of non-compliant PA constituencies down from 45 to 30 — or 58.8 percent of the provincial total. The improvement, while meaningful, left more than half the province’s PA constituencies still above the legal standard, indicating that the scale of the challenge remained severe.
The post-2024 period has produced only limited further progress. Five constituencies reduced their gender gap below the 10 percent threshold following the 2024 elections, bringing the current number of non-compliant PA constituencies to 25 — representing 49 percent of the provincial total. As of the most recent ECP data, 26 of Balochistan’s 51 PA constituencies record a gender gap at or below the 10 percent threshold, representing 51 percent of the province.
While the overall trajectory reflects a gradual decline — from 88.2 percent of constituencies above the legal threshold in 2018 to 49 percent in 2026 — the pace of progress remains deeply inadequate. The province continues to record the highest rate of non-compliant PA constituencies in the country. The modest post-2024 improvement of only five constituencies against a backdrop of 25 still above the threshold reflects entrenched structural, administrative, and sociocultural barriers that continue to obstruct women’s equitable inclusion in the electoral process in Balochistan.
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 enrol 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 the gender gap is sustained and accelerated in the electoral rolls ahead of the next general elections.
