Elections
The Indian government is seeking to expedite the implementation of a 2023 law that reserves 33 percent of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women, but has linked the move to a sweeping redrawing of parliamentary constituencies, sharpening political tensions.
“We’re set to take historic steps to empower women,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said before a special sitting of parliament on Thursday as his government introduced three bills to be debated in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.
While two of the three bills relate to extending the number of women in parliament and state assemblies, a third bill relates to “delimitation”, as the process to redraw parliamentary boundaries based on population is called in India. The bill aims to increase the overall size of parliament from 543 Lok Sabha seats to 850.
The bills are being taken up during a three-day special session and will require a two-thirds majority in both houses to pass. Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) holds 293 seats in lower house of parliament while a two-thirds majority would require 360 votes.
Women voters have become a central point of discussion in elections in India in recent times. Rightly so, because parties in power roll out women-centric schemes, sometimes even direct cash transfer ones, to win their support. Opposition parties too make promises about initiating schemes for women’s welfare, if elected. These promises seem to making some impact, which is reflected in the rising turnout of women voters. Parties appear to have mobilised women through welfare schemes, and this mobilisation is seen as a key factor for electoral success.
The upcoming Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu are unlikely to be different. Women, who constitute nearly half of the electorate in each State (and slightly more in Kerala), are a key focus of all political parties. Electoral trends show that while turnout has increased, women remain underrepresented in State assemblies. However, evidence from Lokniti-CSDS data suggest that their voting choices have somewhat shaped party strategies and political outcomes.
The political history of Bangladesh is inseparable from mass resistance, popular movements, and struggles for freedom and rights. From the anti-colonial resistance against British rule to the Language Movement of 1952, the 1969 Mass Uprising, the anti-Pakistani movement, repeated student movements, and the Liberation War of 1971, women played active and visible roles.
They were organizers, messengers, mobilizers, caregivers, cultural activists, and in many cases direct participants in confrontation with state power. Women were never silent spectators in the making of the nation.
Yet in contemporary Bangladesh, despite women constituting half of the population and despite women having ruled the country for more than three decades, women remain largely absent from mainstream political power.
This contradiction raises fundamental questions about democracy, representation, and justice.
Women’s political engagement in Bengal did not begin in 1952 or 1971. Even during the struggle against British colonial rule, women actively participated in protests, boycotts, underground organizing, and nationalist campaigns.
Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 26 (PTI) The promise of greater political space for women, amplified after the passing of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, appears distant in Kerala’s April 9 Assembly elections, where candidate lists reflect a familiar pattern of underrepresentation.
Despite women accounting for more than half of the electorate in the state, their presence in the electoral fray remains limited, highlighting a persistent imbalance between participation and representation.
The enthusiasm that followed the passage of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam in Parliament in 2023 had raised expectations among women leaders across party lines.
THRISSUR: Rani Gouri Lakshmi Bai, Dr Mary Punnen Lukose, Ammu Swaminathan, Kuttimalu Amma, Accamma Cherian, Dakshayani Velayudhan, O Aisha Beevi, K R Gouri Amma…. These are some women luminaries who shaped Kerala’s socio-political trajectory.
Kerala has long been celebrated as a land of strong women, particularly in social reform and education. Yet, when it comes to politics and power, women remain underrepresented. Even within intra-party hierarchies.
Notably, the Women’s Reservation Bill, mandating 33% representation for women in Parliament and state assemblies, is expected to come into force by 2029. This makes the upcoming election in Kerala noteworthy. The scene, however, is dismal.
Women make up only 10.5 % of the candidates — 54 women and one transgender person of 457 across 140 constituencies.
In the 2021–2026 assembly, only 12 of the 140 MLAs were women. In 2016–2021, the number was eight. A social collective for equal representation, Thulya Prathinidhya Prasthanam (TPP), has for years been vocal about the need to address this imbalance.
“We have been boasting about Kerala as a progressive state. But it is nowhere near when it comes to women’s representation,” said TPP convener K M Rema. “This time, the CPI has shown improvement with four women candidates in the 25 constituencies where it is contesting. The IUML has also made some progress by fielding two women, one up from last time. That’s it.”
aura Fernandez, a conservative, populist politician with strong links to outgoing President Rodrigo Chaves, has won nearly half of the votes in Costa Rica's general election with 94% of votes counted, meaning she will become the country's new leader.
Her victory confirms a strong rightward trend in Latin America, where voter anger at corruption and crime has driven recent conservative wins in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Honduras.
What were the election results in Costa Rica?
Fernandez had won 48.3% of the vote, the preliminary results from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) showed, far in excess of the 40% needed to avoid a run-off.
Fernandez's party, the Sovereign People's Party, is also projected to win a majority of 30 seats in the 57-seat Congress, up from its current eight seats.
The other main candidates in the election lagged far behind Fernandez, with economist Alvaro Ramos receiving about one third of the vote, and architect and former first lady Claudia Dobles taking under 5%.
Costa Rica, a country of some 5 million inhabitants, has so far had only one female president in its history, Laura Chinchilla, who served from 2010 to 2014.
Progress toward gender parity in politics slowed in 2024 — a quiet shift after a streak of record-breaking years for women’s political candidacies. While Kamala Harris makes history this year as the first woman of color atop a presidential ticket, some political organizers are hoping her candidacy will pull more women back into power.
After 2018 was dubbed a second “year of the woman,” — the first being in 1992 — marking a record number of women running for the highest offices in the country, women continued to reach new highs in the subsequent elections: 583 women ran for the House in 2020 and 2022, and 70 women ran for the Senate in 2022, according to data from Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics.
In 2024, those numbers dropped back down to 466 for the House and 52 for the Senate, a conspicuous decline after years of steady growth.
“Progress for women in politics appears to be slowing, if not stalling,” RepresentWomen warned in its 2024 Gender Parity Index last month, noting that women are still significantly underrepresented at all levels of U.S. government.
Read here the full article published by Politico on 23 August 2024.
Image by Politico
What’s the context?
Mid-way through a bumper election year, there are few gains for women in power
¨Gender equality pledges fall short in some countries
¨Women make up slightly more than a quarter of parliaments worldwide on average
¨Experts say underrepresentation creates democratic deficit
BRUSSELS - Billed as “democracy's biggest test,” 2024 is a major election year with billions of citizens casting their votes. But commitments to gender equality in politics are falling short in some parts of the world.
While there have been historic moments, such as the election of Mexico's first female president Claudia Sheinbaum in June and Kamala Harris' bid to become the first female president of the United States, elections in Indonesia, India, the United Kingdom, Pakistan and South Africa had no female frontrunners.
The picture isn't much better in houses of parliament around the world. The percentage of women in legislatures globally stood at 26.9% on average on June 1, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an independent organisation promoting democracy.
At the current rate, it will take 130 years before gender equality is reached in the highest positions of power, according to the United Nations.
Read here the full article published by Context on 21 August 2024.
Image by Context
The number of women running for the House and Senate has dropped, including a record number of incumbent women not running for reelection.
Women continue to make record-breaking progress in politics — most notably with Vice President Kamala Harris becoming the first woman of color at the top of a major party presidential ticket. However, an annual report by RepresentWomen, a nonprofit organization that supports institutional reforms to help women enter public office, found that progress has been inconsistent.
The report, called the Gender Parity Index, tracks gender representation across local, state and federal offices.
“The 2024 Index reflects our complex political landscape, suggesting progress in women’s political representation may stagnate or even backslide,” according to the report.
Overall, the United States lags behind most established democracies. Women are still underrepresented at every level of government, holding under one-third of all elected positions despite accounting for more than 50 percent of the total national population. In the last year, the number of women congressional candidates has fallen by 20 percent in the House and 26 percent in the Senate. And a record number of incumbent women are not running for reelection.
Read here the full article published by 19th News on 12 August 2024.
Image by 19th News
What you need to know:
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There’s a growing consensus among academicians that these quotas “work”.
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However, there is a conundrum as women who are elected in countries with gender quotas are often criticised as being less qualified.
Standing in the scorching afternoon heat, Aminata Bilkisu Kanu took off her sunglasses to wipe away the beads of sweat trickling down her face as she appealed to the crowd of mostly male voters.
“Think ‘women’ when voting in the June 24 elections,” she told them.
“We keep your resources within; the men take them away.”
The 24-year-old single mother was the first woman to run for the national parliament from Mamoi village, part of the Masimera Chiefdom in Port Loko District, located in the conservative north of the country.
Patriarchal culture runs deep in Sierra Leone, but it is even stronger in the north and parts of the east, where customs do not allow for women to become a paramount chief, the traditional name for the district leader.
Read here the full article published by The Nation on 11 August 2024.
Image credits: The Nation
With voters heading to the polls in countries around the world, 2024 has been dubbed the year of elections. While a recent change in the United States election will put a woman at the top of a major party ticket, a June presidential election just over the border in Mexico stood out. Earlier this summer, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was elected president of Mexico, shattering the political glass ceiling in North America. In second place came Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz, another woman. Sheinbaum–in addition to perhaps being born a leader (and having a Nobel-prize winning brain)–and Gálvez are the product of an enabling environment–otherwise, how to explain the rise in women’s political leadership only in the second half of the 20th century? The first woman ever to be elected to the highest office (in this case, the office of prime minister) occurred in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) in 1960.
This blog, part of CGD’s work on women’s leadership, focuses on political leaders and explores which conditions enable women’s leadership by contrasting Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a region that is ahead of most in women’s presence in politics, with Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that is currently some steps behind. The 42 countries in LAC have had a total of 26 women heads of state, presidents, or prime ministers (PMs), with seven incumbent women heads of government (including Sheinbaum who will assume office on October 1, 2024). The 48 countries in SSA have had a total of 16 women heads of state, presidents, or PMs, with four incumbent ones.[1] Women currently hold 36 percent of parliamentary seats in LAC and 27 percent in SSA. Countries in LAC also have a higher share of women cabinet ministers.
Read here the full article published by the Center for Global Development on 09 August 2024.
Image by Center for Global Development
Shirley Chisholm, a Democratic congresswoman, was the first African American woman to run for president of the United States. Sixty years later, Kamala Harris will become the first Black and South Asian American woman to be nominated for president by a major party. Is the United States poised to elect her?
Chisholm, from Brooklyn, N.Y., first ran for office in 1964 — the year both Harris and I were born (the vice president on Oct. 20 and me on Oct. 30). When Chisholm began her presidential campaign in 1972, Harris and I were probably more focused on our toys and our friends, but I was fascinated by politics and aware of Congresswoman Chisholm.
For Black women of my generation, Black women political leaders were few and far between in the 1960s and ’70s, and the numbers remain below our percentage of the population.
Black women represent 7.7 per cent of the total U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census. The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) reports that 5.4 per cent of all voting members of Congress identify as Black women. Nonetheless, the situation has improved greatly compared to 1968, when Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to U.S. Congress.
Read here the full article published by The Conversation on 24 July 2024.
Image by The Conversation