Elections
Last week, all UK political parties confirmed which candidates they were standing in each constituency for the 2024 general election. Including independents, a total of 4,515 candidates will be fighting for a seat in the next government.
If you’ve already tried out our candidate name game, you’d have seen how the most common name was David, owned by a whopping 104 candidates. The Johns came in second with 84 candidates called by this name, and the Pauls a close third with a total of 79.
In fact, when tallying up the most common candidate names, we noticed the top 10 in the list are all male names. It is not until reaching position 11 that you come across the female name Sarah, owned by 43 candidates. Of course, this could be due to women having more diversity in their names. However, it is less easy to dismiss that out of the 4,515 candidates standing, only 31% are women.
Read here the full article published by the Electoral Reform Society on 20 June 2024.
Image by Electoral Reform Society
After a 12-month delay, the 12th Solomon Islands national general elections were held on 17 April 2024. For the first time, joint elections were held, with most provincial assemblies and the Honiara City Council also going to the polls. For women, the results were mixed. Eight women were elected overall — three to national parliament, two to Honiara City Council and three to provincial assemblies — representing significant individual achievements.
As a whole, women’s representation remains low, and current institutional measures to promote women’s engagement in politics have seen limited success. But new initiatives might offer opportunities to increase women’s access to politics.
Prior to the election, there were four women incumbents in the 50-seat parliament. Two, Freda Tuki Soriacomua and Lillian Maefai, contested the 2024 elections. The remaining women members of parliament, Lanelle Tanangada and Ethel Vokia, declined to contest in 2024, with their husbands, both former members of parliament, contesting in their stead.
The ‘widows and wives’ phenomenon in Solomon Islands politics is well-documented, with a common pathway to politics for women being through association with a male spouse or relative who is a politician. The decision of half of Solomon Islands’ women members of parliament to step aside so that their husbands could contest is significant in a context where women are underrepresented, as both members of parliament and candidates. In the 2024 national elections, 20 women stood out of 334 candidates, making up less than 6 per cent of the field.
Three women were elected at the national level. Soriacomua, an Ownership Unity Responsibility Party candidate, was re-elected in Temotu Vatud, while Choylin Yim Douglas and Cathy Launa Nori, both independent candidates, won the seats of Ngella and Maringe/Kokota, respectively.
Read here the full article published by the East Asian Forum on 18 June 2024.
Image by East Asia Forum
Women account for 27% of Bulgaria's new National Assembly (parliament), elected by a snap vote on June 9 and sworn in on June 19. After the European elections, which, in Bulgaria, coincided with the vote for the national legislature, the country sent only four women to the European Parliament, where it has been allocated 17 seats, the Ekaterina Karavelova Foundation says in an analysis published on its website.
The foundation's mission is to encourage women to spearhead the process of transformation in society.
It recalls that the percentage of women in the previous five Bulgarian parliaments was around 24%. In its recent history, Bulgaria has never reached the minimum of 30% recommended as far back as 1995 by the UN Economic and Social Council for women's representation in national legislative bodies, the foundation says.
The proportion of female candidates on the Bulgarian parties' tickets to the European Parliament was around 30% this time, the analysis shows. None of the parties which got to send representatives to the European legislature had a woman at the top of the candidates' list. The four women to represent Bulgaria in Strasbourg are Eva Maydell (GERB), Elena Yoncheva (Movement for Rights and Freedoms), Tsvetelina Penkova (Bulgarian Socialist Party) and Rada Laikova (Vazrazhdane). Penkova rose to an electable position thanks to the preference marks she got from voters, which caused a re-ordering of the BSP candidates' list.
The increase in the share of women in the National Assembly from 24% to 27% is partly due to the higher level of female representation among those elected on the Velichie ticket. The party's 13-member parliamentary group includes six women (46%).
Read here the full article published by the Bulgarian News Agency on 23 June 2024.
Image by Bulgarian News Agency
The recent local elections are a real-time example of why we need gender quotas.
Despite a record number of women running for office, only 26% of newly elected councillors are women, the same percentage as the outgoing cohort.
Women make up more than half of the population, but they are just a quarter of our elected leaders in local government.
And not only has progress stalled, in many areas, it’s going backwards. There are 13 councils with less than a fifth of female representatives.
In Donegal, only 8% of local politicians are women, with Mayo, Longford and Carlow only barely getting above 10%.
Areas that had previously come close to gender parity, such as Dublin City Council and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown have dropped to 40% and 33% respectively, showing a decline in the progression of gender balance at local government level.
Our democracy is strongest when diversity and equality are embedded in our political representation.
Women have had to overcome significant historical disadvantages in securing representation and great success has been achieved. But in 2024, women continue to be grossly under-represented in local politics, especially women from minority and marginalised backgrounds.
Read here the full article published by the Irish Examiner on 23 June 2024.
Image by Irish Examiner
Only 30% of candidates are female, writes Hannah Stevens. The issues lie in selection processes and procedures that create enormous barriers to entry for women, disabled people and ethnic minorities.
While the possibility of the first female chancellor is absolutely to be celebrated, the authors of the letter backing Rachel Reeves are wrong to say we’ve “seen incredible progress” in politics for women (Top businesswomen back Rachel Reeves as first female chancellor, 11 June). At this snap general election, only 30% of the candidates are women. That is a derisory figure. It’s also 4% below the last snap election. So while a few have made it through, it’s not many. Business is actively doing better than politics in the diversity statistics.
The issues lie in processes and procedures. Candidate selection itself is at best opaque and at worst deeply unfair and alienating. It creates enormous barriers to entry, particularly affecting women, disabled people, Black people and other ethnic minorities.
Read here the full article published by The Guardian on 17 June 2024.
Image by The Guardian
Abuse of female election candidates is becoming worse, say candidates, activists and charities.
One female Labour candidate in the north of England said “the harassment continues apace” in the build-up to the election, with online harassment being a particular problem.
As well as being subjected to hate speech and targeted comments online, she said she had also experienced disinformation being spread about her, and malicious complaints being made against her to public bodies.
“Some days you can put a good face on and go out and face it,” she said. “And other days you just think: ‘Why do I do this? Why do I bother?’
“Your family are saying: ‘It’s not worth it, step down’. And these conversations are happening up and down the country with candidates and their families, and people who are thinking about putting themselves forward think, ‘Well, do I want to open myself up to this?’ It’s corrosive to our democracy.”
Christine Wallace, the Conservative candidate for Lewisham West and East Dulwich, also ran in last month’s Greater London Authority elections.
Read here the full article published by The Guardian on 14 June 2024.
Image by The Guardian