Elections
ANALYSIS: What’s at stake as Paraguay gears up for a poll tainted by misinformation and anti-rights discourse
Paraguay, a country that rarely makes international news, will hold general elections on Sunday after a campaign marked by misinformation and failures to progress discussions on women’s, children's and LGBTQ rights.
If Paraguay has been in the headlines in recent months, it has been because of sanctions launched by the US government against former president Horacio Cartes, a tobacco businessman and leader of the right-wing National Republican Association (ANR). America has accused Cartes of corruption and links to terrorism for acts committed before, during, and after his term in office, between 2013 and 2018.
Click here to read the full article published by Open Democracy on 29 April 2023.
ASUNCION (Reuters) - In Paraguay's election on Sunday, Soledad Nunez, a 40-year-old engineer and former minister, is looking to break into the South American country's male-dominated political arena as its first elected female vice president.
Paraguay - which has a reputation for misogynist 'machista' culture even within the often conservative region - has been tough for women seeking to enter politics. Only 15% of lawmakers are women, below the Latin American regional average of around a third.
At the last election five years ago, only one of the candidates for president or vice president was a woman. But there are signs of change, with seven female candidates out of 26 this time around.
Click here to read the full article published by Reuters on 29 April 2023.
What is your take on the claim that that high cost of electioneering in Nigeria discourages women from participating in politics?
Money has always been a huge factor in determining who wins election in Nigeria and that to women is a huge challenge as most women really struggle to get their campaign finance. Even when they become candidates, the political parties also neglect them and don’t get the kind of support that they would expect to get. Nigeria’s election has become so costly that if you are not into politics before, as an aspirant, you may not be in a position to be able to pay what the political space comes with. So, for women, some of them are discouraged from going into politics because of the high cost of elections. They can’t foot the bill that is expected. If you look at the Electoral Act, it has increased the money that people are expected to pay when they pick up forms to about 400 percent of what it used to be, and of course, most women cannot afford it. That’s why you don’t see them contesting for positions.
Click here to read the full article published by New Telegraph on 18 April 2023.
Nongovernmental organizations and activists struggling for equal representation of women in politics and social life have criticized the low number of women on political parties’ parliamentary candidate lists, describing it as “dishonorable.”
The lists of parliamentary candidates were a big disappointment in terms of gender equality, said Nuray Karaoğlu, the head of the Association for Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER), criticizing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) for including only 113 and 147 women, respectively, in the 600-person list.
“Though 50.7 percent of Türkiye is women, this rate is only 17.2 percent for deputies. We are fighting to get the seats that are already ours,” Karaoğlu said. “The demand of women, who struggle in all areas of life, to govern the country equally was once again ignored by men.”
Click here to read the full article published by The Hurriyet Daily News on 12 April 2023.
Female candidates in the local elections across the country this weekend face one of the world’s toughest glass ceilings
Ai Ishimori was teaching Japanese cookery classes in France when she was gripped by an urge to return to her home country.
“Shinzo Abe was prime minister at the time, and a group of older men were doing a bad job of running the country,” she says. “But I was unable to do anything about it. I was really worried about the direction my country was going in.”
Five years on, the 38-year-old is running in local elections in Tokyo – her first attempt to win political office and, she hopes, to start chipping away at the male domination of a G7 country where women are struggling to shatter one of the toughest glass ceilings in the world.
“I decided I could do better than them,” Ishimori tells the Guardian during a break in her campaign to win a seat on the Nerima local assembly in the capital’s north-west. “There is a gender gap in Japan in every area of life, and especially in politics. But there is a solution – more female politicians.”
Click here to read the paper published by The Guardian on 7 April 2023.
Even though the Finnish elections were won by a male, women dominated Finland’s general election that took place on Sunday, with the most successful candidates being female.
The winner of the election is Peterri Orpo from the National Coalition Party with 20.8% of the vote, followed by Finns Party leader Riikka Purra in second place with 20.1% of the vote.
Purra obtained 42,589 votes by herself and became the most popular female candidate in the country in 75 years.
Coming second in the personal ranking was the outgoing Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP), with 35,623 votes from and around her hometown of Tampere. Trailing slightly behind was the rising star and the Deputy Chair of the National Coalition Party (NCP), Elina Valtonen, from the Helsinki electoral district. The 32,406 votes gave a boost to her ministerial aspirations in the next government and also increased her credibility as a possible future chair of her party, which has never been led by a female.
Click here to read the full article published by Euractiv on 4 April 2023.