The numerical strength of Nigerian women is an added advantage in their search for elective positions in the forthcoming 2011 elections, Ogun State Deputy Governor, Salimot Badru has said. “The time has come for the Nigerian women to do more than just queuing at the polling booth and thumb print ballot papers to elect new political office holders and go back home to watch over the home as unofficial ministers of cookery and child bearing,” she said.

Women in Egypt occupy only eight out of the 454 seats in Parliament — and five of those female deputies were appointed by the president. There are just three female ministers and no women among Egypt’s 29 governors. “This is why we had to implement the quota system in order to make room for women in politics,” said Ms. Tahnawy. “It didn’t just happen on its own.”

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has expressed the hope that the ongoing ECOWAS Delocalized Parliament Meeting in Monrovia will give courage to the Liberian National Legislature to give serious consideration to the bill seeking 30 percent women participation in political representation.

President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday called for protecting democracy and democratic institutions adding that the elected assemblies and the government will complete their five-year mandated tenure regardless of what the opponents are saying and doing. The President said that the government was pursuing a comprehensive programme of politico-economic emancipation and empowerment of the women as per cherished dream of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, who throughout her life fought for this cause.

The very low level of female representation in local government is possibly due to the ''rough'' and ''confronting'' nature of politics, which does not come naturally to women, the general manager of North Sydney Council says. ''The politics of local government can get very rough, and women may find that very confronting. It's not a woman's natural style of behaviour,'' Ms Holloway said.

Australia got its first female prime minister on Thursday after the ruling party dumped Kevin Rudd and installed his deputy as leader.
Julia Gillard will lead the government to elections due within months.
She stood unopposed at a vote of the Labor Party's 112 lawmakers at a meeting Thursday, hours after a revolt against Rudd.
"I feel very honored," she told reporters afterward.

Zahra Rahnavard marked the anniversary of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan by issuing a statement stressing that freedom and democracy cannot be achieved without "ending discrimination against women."  In her statement published in Kaleme website, she stressed that the Green Movement is indebted to the “resistance” of women who are at the “forefront of the movement.”