The turnout would have been higher if not for the challenges faced by the 400,000 tribal women who registered to vote. In this conservative and closed society, most women were confined to their homes on election day. Some who ventured out to vote were stoned by men who considered it offensive. And religious leaders adopted a hard line. Begum Jan, founder of the Tribal Women's Welfare Association, disagrees.
Universal suffrage comes after years of lobbying by Pakistani activists.
The denial of voting rights, a holdover from colonial times, was enforced by Pakistan because of the region's geostrategic sensitivity. Haji Jabbar, for one, waited a lifetime to vote. Activists like Begum Jan hope Pakistan's tribal women will someday be able to say the same thing.