Elections

Johannesburg, 31 May: As election results from the 2024 South African elections pour in, Gender Links (GL) predicts a drop in women’s representation in the national assembly of between three and five percentage points.

The result would be South Africa dropping from its current twelfth place in the global ranking of women’s political participation (WPP) to twentieth.  Chantal Revel, princess of the Koranna Royal Household of the Khoi and San First Nations people, who made history by changing South Africa’s electoral system for this election through the Constitutional Court, is not on the ballot papers.

“While democracy is the biggest winner in this election, there may be other casualties,” noted GL Special Advisor Colleen Lowe Morna. “We are watching the numbers closely, because gender equality is intrinsic to every aspect of democracy. It should be a key metric in election analysis.”

There is a close correlation between WPP in South Africa and the electoral fate of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), both because of its dominance in the past, and its voluntary party quota now at fifty percent. The ANC is predicted to lose considerable ground in the 2024 elections. While several political parties have shown commitment to including women on their party lists, other more conservative parties have not observed the principle of equality.

After increasing to 43% in 2009, WPP decreased to 40% in 2014 and then rose to 46% in 2019. Now all indications are that the proportion of women in the national assembly will drop back to the 2009 levels or below.

Several factors make 2024 a watershed election in South Africa. The 2024 elections are arguably the most contested since the advent of democracy thirty years ago in 1994, when the ANC won 63% of the vote.

Read here the full article published by Gender Links on 31 May 2024.

Image by Gender Links

LONDON — Claudia Sheinbaum broke the glass ceiling when she was declared the winner of Mexico’s presidential elections this week.

It is a modern-era feat that eludes Group of Seven powerhouses such as the United States, France and Japan. But Sheinbaum’s decisive victory means Mexico joins the likes of its Latin American compatriots, Argentina and Brazil, in electing a female head of state in the 21st century.

Pablo Calderon Martinez, a Northeastern University associate professor of politics and international relations, says the breakthrough is no accident.

When Sheinbaum is sworn in, Calderon Martinez points out, four of the most senior government positions in Mexico — president, Supreme Court president, head of the National Electoral Institute and the mayor of Mexico City — will be held by women.

In addition, there is an almost 50-50 gender split in the Congress of the Union, the country’s federal legislature.

Calderon Martinez says efforts were made in Mexico to “correct gender imbalances” with it written into law that every political party has to put forward a field of candidates that is made up of 50% women.

Read here the full article published by Northeastern University on 4 June 2024.

Image by Northeastern University

Mexico will have its first woman president following a landmark vote on June 2, 2024.

After an election period marred by violence, ruling Morena party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor, emerged as the victor with about 60% of the vote – a larger share of the vote than her mentor and predecessor, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, won in 2018. Sheinbaum beat rival Xóchitl Gálvez, a senator for the center-right National Action Party, who trailed with less than 30% of the vote.

Acknowledging the significance of the occasion, Sheinbaum said: “For the first time in the 200 years of the republic I will become the first woman president of Mexico.”

But as scholars who study politics and gender in Mexico, we know that optics are one thing, actual power another. Seventy years after women won the right to vote in Mexico, is the country moving any closer to making changes that would give women real equality?

Read here the full article published by The Conversation on 3 June 2024.

Image by The Conversation

Claudia Sheinbaum went to her voting center on Sunday and marked her ballot with the name of Ifigenia Martínez, the first Mexican woman to graduate from Harvard University with a master’s degree and doctorate and one of the first women to reach a position of responsibility in Mexico’s public administration. Martínez — one of the most influential women in Mexico — is also founder of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and a senator in Congress.

Sheinbaum’s symbolic vote was a nod to the women who have forged the path for women to win their political rights. A tortuous path full of violence and blood, in which despite the achievements achieved so far, there are still problems with gender equality, the economic independence of women, sexist violence and femicides. The big question now is whether the fact that Sheinbaum has been elected Mexico’s first female president will translate into more political rights and protection for women in Mexico, where 11 women are murdered a day.

Read here the full article published by El País on 6 June 2024.

Image by El País

On 29 December 2023, the Solomon Islands National Cabinet approved the introduction of temporary special measures (TSMs) to improve women’s political representation in the Provincial Government Assemblies (PGAs). Slated as an amendment to the Provincial Government Amendment Bill, the measures are expected to be voted on in the National Parliament this year, marking a momentous milestone in the fight for gender equality in Solomon Islands.

Women’s political participation and representation has been an ongoing challenge in Solomon Islands. Since independence in 1978, only eight women have been elected to the National Parliament. At the provincial level there are currently only five female members out of 173 members (2.8%). Women seeking leadership roles face many barriers including a patriarchal culture, religious norms, lack of education, and money politics. For example, in the recent 2024 election it was announced that two serving female MPs would not stand for re-election, stepping aside so that their husbands could contest their seats. The fact that only six per cent of candidates in the 2024 election were women, with only eight elected across national and provincial levels, further underscores the existing gender disparity in political representation.

Read here the full article published by Devpolicy.org on 28 May 2024.

Image by Devpolicy.org