PESHAWAR  -  Great enthusiasm is be­ing witnessed among fe­male voters of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ahead of General Election 2024.

Sidra Sheraz and her sister Samina Qaiser, the young female voters of WAPDA Town Nowshera district were excited to exercise their right of vote for the first time in Febru­ary 8, 2024 General Elec­tion after their names were enrolled by ECP.

“We are eagerly await­ing of the February 8 gen­eral election and would cast our first vote and become part of the elec­toral process viz a viz de­cision making for setting of future government,” said Sidra who is asso­ciated with the teaching profession, adding that women were about half of the country’s popu­lation and their votes would play a key role in deciding fates of political parties.

“I would cast my first vote based on political parties’ past performance record and manifestos,” she said, adding votes of young voters, especially females would be a decid­ing factor in February 8 General Election.

According to ECP’s data, approximately 127 million registered voters would exercise their right of franchise in the upcoming gener­al election. About 72.31 million (56.9pc) of to­tal voters were regis­tered in Punjab, 26.65 million voters are in Sindh (21pc), 21.69 mil­lion voters (17.1pc) in KP while 5.28 million (4.2pc) of all registered voters in Balochistan would exercise their right of votes in 2024 general election.

The total number of registered voters was re­corded in 2018 as 106 million which had in­creased to 127 million this year. The gender gap among voters slashed with an addition of 11.74 million female voters compared to 9.28 million male voters, to the elec­toral rolls since the 2018 general election raising the total number of reg­istered voters to 127 mil­lion in 2023.

The total number of registered voters in the country in 2018 was nearly 106 million in­cluding 59.22 million men and 46.73 mil­lion women voters with 12.49 million deference in all provinces of Paki­stan.

This difference of 12.49 million was fur­ther increased to an all-time high of 12.72m next year when 62.55 million men and 49.83 million women were found eligi­ble to cast a vote.

A significant drop in the gender gap was wit­nessed last year when the total number of registered male vot­ers slashed from 66.50 million to 66.40 mil­lion, while the number of women jumped from 54.69 million to 55.78 million.

Similarly, over 21 mil­lion voters were add­ed to the electoral rolls since the 2018 elections in Pakistan where the number of women had swelled from 46.73 mil­lion in the last polls to 58.47 million in 2023.

Similarly, the number of male voters jumped from 59.22 million in 2018 to 68.50 million by July 25, 2023.

ECP statistics disclosed that there were around 57.1 million youth aged between 18 and 35, mak­ing up 45pc of those, who are eligible to vote.

The number of vot­ers aged 36 to 45 years comes to 27.79 million ie 21.88pc and the two age groups comprise 84.81 million voters or two-thirds of the total 127 million voters in Pa­kistan.