Islamabad, March 9, 2025: Despite persistent challenges facing women representation due to unresolved electoral controversies, women parliamentarians exhibited remarkable commitment and productivity in shaping legislative priorities, influencing policy discourse, and contributing to parliamentary actions during 2024–2025, says the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) in its Women Parliamentarians Performance Report (2024-25), released
The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) urges the government to consider comprehensive legal reforms to strengthen the implementation of the Right of Access to Information Act, 2017. FAFEN’s policy brief, Strengthening the Right to Information (RTI) in Pakistan, released on Sunday, emphasizes that while Pakistan’s RTI framework is recognized as one
ISLAMABAD, January 26, 2025: Women voters in 18 percent communities in the jurisdiction of male and female polling stations voted differently from their men counterparts in National Assembly constituencies during General Elections (GE) 2024, according to a report on Women Voting Choices by Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) that was released
Issues Report on Availability, Usability and Accessibility of Information on Parliamentary Websites ISLAMABAD, January 21, 2025: The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has called for the standardization of information and accessibility features across parliamentary websites as a prerequisite to enhancing their usability and transparency. Such reforms are essential not only to
ISLAMABAD, February 14, 2024: As many as 60.6 million voters exercised their right to vote in Pakistan’s 12th general elections (GE) on February 8, 2024. Nearly 5.8 million more people voted in GE-2024 as compared to 2018 when 54.8 million had cast their votes. Despite the increase in the absolute number of
ISLAMABAD, February 12, 2024: Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) urges the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to take notice of non-compliance by the Returning Officers with its instructions that reinforced categoric legal provisions requiring complete transparency at all stages of the election results process including the preparation of provisional and consolidated
ISLAMABAD, February 10, 2024: Approximately 60 million voters went to the polls in Pakistan on February 8, 2024, to elect their representatives in 265 National Assembly and 590 Provincial Assembly constituencies in one of the country’s most competitive political contests. The elections followed two tumultuous years of political upheaval, discord and polarization,
ISLAMABAD, February 6, 2024: The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) calls upon all election stakeholders to make collective efforts to ensure that the voters are able to freely cast their ballots on February 8, 2024 and subsequent processes of counting, tabulation and consolidation are conducted in an entirely transparent manner in
FAFEN Analysis of Final Electoral Rolls: More than Half of Pakistan’s Population Registered as Voters for Upcoming Elections Gender Gap decreased from GE-2018, but persists at 9.9 million FAFEN calls for focused efforts to alleviate under-registration of young women ISLAMABAD, January 31, 2024: With the fifth-highest number of registered voters globally, Pakistan
DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT HERE: "Asian Electoral Review: Advancing Electoral Democracy through Electoral Reforms" The year 2024 has been dubbed as the year of elections with more than 50 countries and territories around the world set to hold national and regional elections.1 In the first quarter of the year alone, Bangladesh and
ISLAMABAD, January 1, 2024: The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) urges the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to publish the decisions of the Returning Officers (ROs) regarding objections to nomination of candidates and rejections of nomination papers on its website, which will contribute towards a more informed discourse and strengthen electoral
March 8 is International Women's Day. It is commemorated to celebrate the gains in advancing women's rights as well as shed light on the issues and challenges they encounter including participation and engaging in politics and governance. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, in their "Women in Parliament in 2022" report, found that while women's
ISLAMABAD, February 2, 2023: Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has called for introducing divisional quotas for seats reserved for women in the National and Provincial Assemblies to ensure the geographical representativeness of women as well as to incentivize their greater political role in the areas where women’s participation is marginal. In
The current electoral system and the incentive structures it creates effectively disenfranchise Pakistan's non-Muslim voters As Pakistan gears up for general elections this year, the country’s religious minorities appear dejected over their parliamentary representation. Beset by a spate of issues ranging from underemployment, a dwindling population and undercounting to victimization at the
Parties Need to Agree on Regulating Political Finance, Refining Results Management, Devising Mechanisms for Overseas Voting, and Catering to Representativeness Issues In Elections ISLAMABAD, January 27, 2023: Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) calls upon the political parties to immediately initiate a comprehensive dialogue on addressing the weaknesses in the existing legal
If the authorities are serious about making women an active part of the system, they must be given real representation on the assembly floors, and protected from social media harassment so that more women will enter politics and contribute towards putting the country on the path to prosperity. First published on The
Violations of Campaigning Restrictions and Lax Compliance with Ballot Issuance Persist ISLAMABAD, January 19, 2023: Voters in Karachi and Hyderabad Divisions turned out variedly to elect more than 3,508 councilors in long-delayed local government elections on January 15, 2023, that remained peaceful and relatively orderly, but were tainted by allegations of rigging
Tradition threatens electoral democracy and universal suffrage: not a single woman cast a vote in the 2018 General Elections in Mohri Pur First published on The Friday Times, "The Village in Punjab Where Women are Forbidden from Voting" (Urdu version) was produced under the ANFREL Asian Media Fellowship on Election Reporting. In
First published on FAFEN's website. ISLAMABAD, October 17, 2022: With only 35 percent of the registered voters turning out on Election Day, the by-elections (BE-2022) in eight National Assembly and three Punjab Assembly constituencies remained peaceful with scattered instances of irregularities primarily concerning unchecked campaigning inside and around polling stations, observes Free
ISLAMABAD, August 7, 2022: Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) calls upon the Parliament and political parties to strengthen the regulations on political finance to curtail the role of money in elections that has practically deprived the majority of the population of exercising their right to contest elections. FAFEN urges the political
Conclusive probe into claims of alleged rigging and bias must for integrity of elections ISLAMABAD, July 19, 2022: An impressive 49.7 percent turnout in the by-elections for 20 Punjab Assembly constituencies on July 17, 2022 augurs well for an otherwise struggling democracy in Pakistan. The election day remained largely orderly and well-managed,
Persisting Irregularities and Overcrowding Need to be Checked during Second Phase of LG Elections ISLAMABAD, July 8, 2022: Around 40 percent of the registered voters turned out to vote in the first phase of the local government (LG) elections to elect 5,331 general members of Union Councils, Union Committees, Municipal Committees, Town
Islamabad, June 29, 2022: Abysmally low female turnout and inadequate arrangements to protect secrecy of vote coupled with widespread instances of campaigning and canvassing on Election Day remain major issues clouding the by-election in PK-7 Swat-VI that was otherwise peaceful with generally compliant voting and counting processes, observes Free and Fair Election
ISLAMABAD, June 20, 2022: Election on a working day deterred a majority of voters from casting their ballots in NA-240 (Korangi Karachi-II) by-polls that largely remained orderly, but was overshadowed by two high-profile incidents of violence widely covered on national media, reports Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN). According to FAFEN observers,
ISLAMABAD, June 17, 2022: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is delimiting the constituencies for elections to the National and Provincial Assemblies after the official publication of the results of 6th Population and Housing Census 2017. The latest exercise was compelled by the effect of Section 17(2) of the Elections Act, which
ISLAMABAD, April 19, 2022: Abysmally low turnout, inconsistent procedural compliance, and widespread campaigning and canvassing on the polling day marked the NA-33 Hangu by-election, which remained peaceful and free of any controversy. With only 14 percent of the registered voters – 19 percent male voters and six percent female voters – exercising
ISLAMABAD, April 5, 2022: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) successfully completed the second phase of the local government (LG) elections with around 41 percent of the 8.5 million registered voters in 18 districts turning out to vote on March 31, 2022 to elect 12,875 representatives on general and reserved seats in an election that
ISLAMABAD, April 4, 2022: Expressing grave concerns at the recent political developments and ensuing constitutional crisis, the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has identified multiple constitutional, legal and operational challenges to the conduct of an early election. While the constitutionality of the measures leading to the dissolution of the National Assembly
Parliament Leaves Around One-fifth Agenda Initiated by Female MPs Unaddressed ISLAMABAD, March 8, 2022: Undeterred by under-representation and neglect, female parliamentarians upheld their tradition of proactively and assertively performing their legislative, representative and oversight functions in both Houses of the Parliament during 2021-22. This has been observed in Annual Women Parliamentarians Performance
First published on FAFEN's website on 11 May 2021. Calls for a broader public debate and political discourse on the meaningful electoral reforms to enhance representation and inclusivity ISLAMABAD, May 11, 2021: The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) has urged the government to desist from any haste in introducing the changes
