Peshawar, Oct 07: Tribal leaders in Pakistan's conservative northwestern border belt have vowed to bar women from voting in Thursday's general elections. "This is against tribal traditions. Our women will not cast votes in any election," tribal elder Mohammad Sarwar told a news channel from Bajaur, a border district 75 km north of this North West Frontier Province (NWFP) capital.
"We have decided not to let women vote," said Sarwat Ali, a tribesman in neighbouring Khyber district.
"We have our tribal traditions, and there are also difficulties for women in casting their votes as it is a mountainous area."

Some 440,000 women in all of NWFP are eligible to vote in the polls, the first since President Pervez Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999. According to data from the national election commission, up to 70 per cent of women in remote pockets of the tribal areas did not vote.

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Residents of Bajaur said local candidates from the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a six-party alliance of fundamentalist Islamic parties, had been threatening "Jihad" if women were allowed to vote.

"Two MMA candidates announced in public rallies that if anyone let women cast votes, they will start a Jihad," MMA activist Ashfaq Ahmad said.

"They said they will start a jihad against those who bring women to polling stations," he said.

Bureau Report