Islamabad, July 27 (Reuters): Conservative tribal leaders in a remote part of northwestern Pakistan have barred women from local council elections next month, a move the central government called unconstitutional and vowed to resist.

Local administrators in the mountainous Upper Dir and adjoining Battagram districts, which are inhabited mainly by ethnic Pashtuns, said women would not be allowed to stand in the elections or vote.

“This has been decided by the local elders and candidates from all parties, that women will not participate in the elections,” said Zafar Ali Shah, the district coordination officer in Upper Dir. The districts, about 200 km northwest of Islamabad, are in North West Frontier Province, which has been run since 2002 by an Opposition Islamist alliance. Critics accuse the alliance of trying to emulate the policies of the ousted Taliban regime.