12 female commentators who you should follow for election analysis

While skimming through TV channels announcing and analysing election results since voting day, one thing was clear: we need more women in the public eye commenting on politics.

And it's not because there's a dearth of knowledgeable female experts; there are tons of women in academia, the media, even Twitter who were covering the 2018 elections, whose reporting and writing will indisputably shape opinions and start conversations over the five years. However, they aren't often acknowledged for their contributions.

So in case you missed them, here are some female commentators who sounded off on the elections and who you should follow right now:

1) Sarah Khan

Sarah Khan is a Political Science PhD student at Columbia. Her tweets have been doing the rounds recently for all the right reasons (she schooled Sara Taseer on Plato, in case you missed it!) and her recent, poignant piece on why it's important to vote also put her on the map.

2) Madiha Afzal

Madiha is an author and professor of global policy at Johns Hopkins SAIS. She writes regularly for Pakistani and international publications and has been a consultant for the World Bank and DFID. The proof is in the pudding; read her recent blog on underlying factors to consider before voting here.

She received her PhD in Economics from Yale University in 2008, specialising in Development Economics and Political Economy.

3) Meena Gabeena

Meena minces no words.

She's a teacher and human rights activist and is also the founder of the NGO 'Meenay Laas' (Hands of Love) that helps citizens in the legal registration process.

4) Amber Rahim Shamsi

Amber Rahim Shamsi has been a writer, journalist, anchor (currently at Hum News) and is also a producer for BBC Urdu Service Pakistan; she also shares some of the funniest memes.

5) Aimen Bucha

According to her bio, she's a "socialist feminist and aspiring pyromaniac"; she has in-depth knowledge about politics and also campaigned for the Awami Workers Party.

6) Erum Haider

Erum is a PhD candidate in her fourth year at Georgetown University, Department of Government. If you want an honest and blow-by-blow account of the elections, her Twitter is one to watch.

7) Nighat Dad

Nighat Dad is a lawyer and a women's rights activist; she is also the founder of the Digital Rights Foundation, “a women-led organisation focusing on ICTs (information and communications technologies) to support human rights, democracy and digital governance”. She also served as an observer during the 2018 elections, sharing her observations on Twitter.

8) Munizae Jahangir

The multi-talented Munizae Jahangir is a documentary filmmaker (Search for Freedom (2003), Pak: The War Within (2009), journalist and anchor who has reported on Pakistan's political affairs for decades now.

9) Mehreen Zahra-Malik

Mehreen is a Reuters Pakistan correspondent with a "strong focus on South Asia, national security, military and international affairs and human rights issues." She is also a contributing reporter for The New York Times and has had her work appear in various other publications such as The New Republic, Al Jazeera English, Newsweek, The Hindu and Indian Express to name a few.

10) Meher Bokhari

Meher is a journalist and Dawn News anchor, who started her work at SAMAA and also had a high-profile stint at Dunya News.

11) Sabahat Zakariya

Zakariya is a well-known writer and editor who routinely tweets about Pakistani pop culture, feminism and yes, you guessed it, politics.

12) Zebunnisa Burki

She delivers some searing critique of our political parties coupled with laugh out loud commentary; she is the deputy op-ed editor at The News.