Elections
The Centre has tabled three bills in the Lok Sabha during a three-day special session that began today (April 16). These bills – the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2026, the Delimitation Bill, 2026 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment Bill), 2026 — are expected to cause a showdown in Parliament.
The opposition is up in arms over delimitation, which the government has linked to the implementation of reserving one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and in the Legislative Assemblies of States and Union Territories (UTs). These bills aim to expedite the rollout of the women’s quota before the 2029 general elections.
Let’s take a closer look.
In Bangladesh, the transition from a government job to a political career is not as straightforward as it ought to be. Under Section 12(1)(f) of the Representation of the People Order, 1972, government officials are eligible to contest parliamentary elections only after a period of three years—commonly known as a cooling-off period—has passed since their resignation or retirement from office. This provision is based on valid concerns, but its broad implementation raises significant issues regarding inclusivity and the future of political engagement, particularly for women.
The purpose of the cooling-off period is to deter people from using their positions, power, or privileged knowledge for gaining political advantage, and thus preventing perceived political patronage, misappropriation of public resources, and conflicts of interest. Additionally, it prevents former public employees from exploiting their previous positions for personal or political gain, especially by moving directly into a political role where they might receive disproportionate benefits. The concept of separation of powers and public trust could be undermined if civil servants were free to transition into political positions. As a result, the cooling-off period serves as a deterrent, strengthening accountability and safeguarding institutional integrity.
Although the provision’s intent is sound, its application might be sweeping and too basic. Not every public employee holds a position with substantial decision-making or executive power, access to confidential data, or the potential to influence political outcomes. For example, a government officer in grade 10, 11, or 12 might not be as influential as executives at the directorial level, especially if they held no administrative or policymaking responsibilities. These variations are not taken into consideration when the same three-year restriction is applied consistently to all levels of public service.
This post is part of Global Voices’ April 2026 Spotlight series, “Human perspectives on AI.” This series will offer insight into how AI is being used in global majority countries, how its use and implementation are affecting individual communities, what this AI experiment might mean for future generations, and more. You can support this coverage by donating here.
A photograph began circulating across Bangladeshi social media on December 14, 2025, that would majorly influence the national election on February 12 — the first election since the July 2024 student-mass uprising toppled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government. The high-stakes vote was considered a penultimate test of whether Bangladesh could rebuild and realize its hopes for a free and fair democracy following the uprising.
The image showed Shadik Kayem, 27th Vice-President of Dhaka University Central Students’ Union, sitting across a small table from another man, apparently sharing tea in what looked like a casual meeting between acquaintances. The timing made the photograph explosive: just three days earlier, Osman Hadi, the coordinator of Inqilab Moncho (Revolution Platform), a cultural organization formed by people associated with the July 2024 student-mass uprising, had been shot in Dhaka, triggering immediate political controversy about who orchestrated the attack.
Women will be massively underrepresented on ballot papers across the UK next week, campaigners say, with research revealing that almost twice as many men as women are standing as candidates across the local, mayoral and devolved elections.
Democracy campaigners say men of all political stripes are likely to dominate local government, with women’s views on issues from social care to bin collections sidelined by the huge gap between the numbers of male and female candidates.
Across all elections taking place on 7 May, a third of candidates are women and two-thirds are men, with no party achieving gender parity, according to analysis by 50:50 Parliament and Democracy Club shared exclusively with the Guardian.
In local elections in England, which account for the largest number of candidates out of all elections next Thursday, 34% of candidates are female and no party is fielding an equal number of men and women. In the six mayoral elections taking place, 18% of candidates are women; in the Senedd elections, the figure is 38%; and in the Scottish parliament elections it is 36%.
SHUNTED TO THE back, the men must wait their turn. At an election rally on the outskirts of Kolkata, in the state of West Bengal, an all-female marching group leads the way. Women are at the centre of campaigning in the state’s election, which takes place in two stages on April 23rd and 29th. Winning over female voters is also crucial in the three other states and a union territory that are holding polls this month.
By mid-May, the parliament will have completed the process of filling the 50 reserved seats for women. On Monday, the ruling BNP announced the names of its candidates for the 36 seats allocated to it in proportion to its representation in parliament, while Jamaat-e-Islami and others are expected to announce theirs soon. But in the wake of a mass uprising that intensified calls for parliamentary reforms—including increasing women’s reserved seats and holding direct elections for them—this otherwise routine procedure has become a test of whether the country is willing to move from symbolic inclusion to meaningful power-sharing.
And unless the current system is fundamentally reimagined, it risks reinforcing the very inequalities it claims to dismantle.
Ensuring equal participation and representation of women in parliament is not just a matter of democratic justice; it is foundational to democracy itself. But representation must go beyond tokenistic gestures. It must reflect the full diversity of women’s lived realities across class, ethnicity, religion, disability, and identity. Without this, inclusion becomes illusion, and democracy becomes exclusionary by design.
In Chile, the last municipal elections were held on the 15th and 16th of May of 2021. In these elections, authorities responsible for local administration were elected, including mayors of 345 municipalities that administer 346 communes, the smallest administrative division in the country, and 13 regional governors. This was the first-time in Chile’s history that governors were democratically elected given they were previously always designated by the President of the Republic.
The next municipal and regional elections are set to take place on the 26th and 27th of October 2024.
International Conventions
Chile is signatory of the main international instruments on gender equality and women’s empowerment, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), that upholds women’s right to participate in public life, and the Beijing Platform for Action adopted in 1995, which calls for removing all barriers to equal participation.
The CEDAW Convention was signed and ratified in 1980 and 1989, and the CEDAW Optional Protocol in 1999 and 2020 respectively.
National Legislation
Political participation
Gender quotas to promote women’s representation at local levels have not been legislated in Chile. Other temporary special measures to address youth and indigenous peoples underrepresentation in local decision-making have also not been legislated to date.
However, a draft law (Bulletin No. 11994-34) establishing gender quotas for regional governors and local councillors, that establishes a maximum representation of 60 per cent for either sex in candidate lists is currently in the second stage of constitutional review in the Senate.[1]
Chile also introduced parliamentary gender quotas in the the 2015–2016 electoral reforms establishing at least 40 per cent of candidates standing for Parliament must be women. This temporary measure established under Act No. 20.840 is set to last until the parliamentary elections of 2029. It also provides that at least 10 per cent of state funding contributed to each political party must be used to promote the political participation of women.
Chile is also the first country in the world to carry out a constitutional electoral process with a gender parity mechanism for both lists of candidates and election results, as provided in 2020 by Act No. 21.216 on constitutional reform. As a result, the body currently has a membership of 77 women and 78 men. In addition, in 2020 the inclusion of 17 seats reserved for representatives of indigenous peoples was approved, 9 of which are occupied by women.[2]
Read here the full article published by GWL Voices on 24 October 2024.
Image by GWL Voices
For decades, a key goal of activists and policymakers has been involving women in politics. Achieving gender parity in the political realm – that is, seeing more women running for and winning political office – is not merely a rhetorical goal. In fact, research has shown that women bring unique perspectives and focuses to lawmaking. A seminal study by Raghabendra Chattopadhyay and Esther Duflo showed that when women are given a seat at the table, they implement policies more relevant to the needs of women generally.
Many countries have implemented targeted electoral laws, known as “gender quotas,” as part of an effort to increase women’s political participation. These laws vary in the size of the quota, whether the quotas are legally enforced, at what stage of the election process they are enforced, which branch of government they are applied to (legislative, executive, judicial) and what level of government they are applied to (local, regional, federal). India reserves a minority of districts for women to lead, while in France, it is mandated in municipal elections that half of the candidates each party nominates must be women. Designing each system requires trade-offs: while a reserved seat system like India’s guarantees that at least some women will be elected, such strict systems could face legal opposition in their implementation.
Read here the full article published by Boston University Global Development Policy Center on 1 October 2024.
Image by Boston University Global Development Policy Center
Introduction
Women, and women of color in particular, face numerous challenges when running for political office in the U.S. These include attacks they are subject to in various online spaces that, like their peers, they must use to campaign and promote their work. These attacks often aim to undermine and prevent women’s participation in politics. Previous research by CDT found that women of color Congressional candidates in the 2020 U.S. election were more likely to be subjected to violent and sexist abuse, and mis- and disinformation on X/Twitter compared to other candidates. These forms of abuse might contribute to the underrepresentation of women of color in politics, and may also undermine the effectiveness of the US democratic system in reflecting the interest and priorities of all voters in policy-making.
In this research brief, we turn to the 2024 U.S. elections to examine the nature of offensive speech and hate speech that candidates running for Congress are subject to on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), which remains an important forum for political candidates. More specifically, we compare the levels of offensive speech and hate speech that different groups of Congressional candidates are targeted with based on race and gender, with a particular emphasis on women of color. We also examine these factors for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as a woman of color and presidential candidate.
Read here the full report published by Center for Democracy & Technology on 2 October 2024.
Image credits: Center for Democracy & Technology
2. Global Trends
2.3. Rights
2.3.4. Gender Equality
The Gender Equality subfactor measures power distribution by gender and female participation in civil society organizations, the ratio of female-to-male mean years of schooling and the proportion of lower-chamber legislators who are female. It also measures exclusion by gender, women’s empowerment and women’s political and economic rights.
While Gender Equality has not made notable improvements globally since 2018 (eight countries saw advances, and five saw declines), there have been important markers of progress. These include the passage of a bill to implement a gender quota for the lower house of parliament and state assemblies in India and a landmark bill that would guarantee extra seats for women in provincial assemblies in the Solomon Islands (Brechenmacher 2023; RNZ 2024; Solomon Islands Government 2024).
Mexico is also a noteworthy case, as it sets a high standard in terms of the range of mechanisms it has in place to ensure women’s political participation. In 2024 voters chose Claudia Sheinbaum to be Mexico’s first woman president. Additionally, at the time of the writing of this report, the heads of the Supreme Court and the Electoral Tribunal were both women, as were the presidents of the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies and the National Electoral Institute (INE). Building on previous amendments that had gradually introduced gender parity, a groundbreaking 2019 constitutional reform established ‘parity in everything’ as a permanent principle in all branches of government to guarantee women’s access to politics, government and the administration of justice (Ravel 2024; Piscopo and Vázquez Correa 2023).
Although high levels of violence, particularly against women, have been an issue in this election year (INEGI 2022; Piscopo and Vázquez Correa 2023; Harrison-Cripps 2024; Calderón 2024), strong legislation and policies have facilitated the monitoring and sanctioning of gender-based political violence, including through a National Registry of Sanctioned Persons for Violence against Women in Politics and the INE’s collaboration with platforms regarding digital-based political violence (INE 2024; Meta 2024).
Read here the full report published by International IDEA on 17 September 2024.
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, The Carter Center, the National Democratic Institute, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and the Kofi Annan Foundation announced today the release of Model Commitments for Advancing Genuine and Credible Elections.
With democratic elections and institutions facing growing threats globally, it is critical to have actionable commitments that help improve, defend, and expand election integrity. The Model Commitments provides a resource with specific steps government leaders and democracy advocates can take to help strengthen democracy and elections, including ways to expand dialogue on key electoral issues. The Model Commitments are intended to benefit everyone involved in electoral processes and systems, including voters, candidates, election officials, election observers, and others.
The Model Commitments outline five sets of electoral integrity commitments — to protect Genuine Elections, Legal Framework, Election Administration, Electoral Accountability, and Information Integrity.
They draw on existing international norms, standards, and best practices for democratic elections, including most that are catalogued in the Carter Center’s Election Obligations and Standards Database and the Election Obligations and Standards Handbook.
Democratic electoral processes face constant pressures and changing circumstances in countries around the world. To help build public trust in election integrity and democratic governance, the Model Commitments are designed to reflect changing contexts and efforts to strengthen democracy in the face of new and evolving challenges.
This resource lays out ways for governments to affirm efforts to implement these commitments or to pledge an intention to apply them in a timely manner through appropriate electoral reform measures.
The Model Commitments for Advancing Genuine and Credible Elections is supported by like-minded organizations that share a commitment to the principles embodied in the Model Commitments. The organizations listed below have indicated their support for the Model Commitments. Additional supporting organizations will be added annually and announced around each International Day of Democracy.
·Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL)
·Election Watch EU
·Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA)
·European Partnership for Democracy (EPD)
·European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE)
·Experts in Democracy, Governance, and Elections (EDGE)
·Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD)
·Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD)
Read here the full Models Commitments published by the NDI on 15 September 2024.
In Congress this term, 25% of senators and 28% of representatives are women, near record highs for both houses, but far below equal representation with men. As Kamala Harris runs for president, will being a woman cost her votes?
To learn more about the role of gender in American politics, we spoke with Brian Schaffner, a political science professor and Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies. He is also a principal investigator of the Cooperative Election Study, the largest academic survey focused on U.S. elections, and is writing a book about how political polarization is defined by social divisions.
How have attitudes toward electing women changed in America in the last 30 years?
People now are much more open to electing women to all levels of office, including to president, although obviously we haven’t seen a woman president yet. The number of women in Congress, for example, has hit historic highs, even though it’s well under parity with men. There are also a lot of women governors throughout the country.
Political science research shows that when women run for office, they are at least as successful as men are. The big problem is not that voters won’t vote for a woman for political office now; it’s that women don’t run as often as men do.
Why don’t women run for office as much as men?
This is not necessarily my area of expertise, but there’s a lot of research that focuses on this. It shows a range of factors, from how women and men are raised differently to the types of things people have to do to run for office, like raising money—having to put yourself out there.
Also, until recently, women weren’t recruited as much as men to run for office. The parties would go out and try to recruit men, because they were the people who were in their networks.
Read here the full article published by the Tufts University on 4 September 2024.
Image credits: Tufts University