Elections
Last year, an aura of possibility hovered in anticipation of around 60 elections that were held across the world. Today, we face the outcomes of ballot choices that continue to cap women’s political leadership at a global level, as the UN Women's latest report highlights a slowdown of equality between women and men in politics.
Moving the needle on political empowerment
Approximately half of the head of state elections held in 2024 had women running for the top job. Out of virtual parity however, there were three times as many men re-elected than women elected overall. In terms of gender, the balance is slightly more positive. While two economies saw female incumbents replaced by newly elected male candidates, in four economies, electorates chose women to succeed men as head of state. However, when it comes to volume, out of the Global Gender Gap Report’s most populous economies, three elected men, and only one elected a woman as head of state.
For the legislative sphere, results are mixed. Among economies with parliamentary elections in 2024, Mexico and Rwanda continue to lead in female representation, with 50% and 64% of seats won by women in their lower houses, respectively. Belgium, Iceland, Senegal, South Africa, and the UK, achieved just over 40% of female representation. However, 80% of legislatures elected in 2024 selected men to the role of speaker, keeping legislative leadership overwhelmingly male.
Most countries have tackled the lack of female representation in their political decision-making by implementing legal candidate quotas. While this approach increased the proportion of female candidates, no major impacts have been observed on the proportional representation among elected officials. Notably, only two economies achieved higher percentages of elected women compared to female candidates.
Click here to read the full article published by the World Economic Forum on 17 March 2025.
Image by WEF
THE lack of women representation in parliaments across the world remains a vexed and contentious issue.
In Fiji, this problem again surfaced for debate in response to Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica’s call for a quota system to increase women’s representation in Parliament.
Mr Kamikamica was speaking at the “Capacity building training for prospective women and youth candidates in local elections” workshop in Suva in November last year.
The workshop was organised by Suva-based civil society organisation, Dialogue Fiji, in collaboration with Emily’s List Australia and funded by Misereor.
Mr Kamikamica noted that women’s representation in Fiji’s Parliament peaked at 20 per cent in 2018, only to drop to 14 per cent after the 2022 elections.
Read here the full article published by The Fiji Times on 11 Janurary 2025.
Image by The Fiji Times
Handicraft market trader Tui Johnson has barely had time to think about politics ahead of Vanuatu’s national election as she struggles to survive after last month’s earthquake.
Fourteen people were killed, more than 200 seriously injured and 80,000 people displaced or adversely affected when the 7.3 magnitude quake struck just off the capital Port Vila on Dec. 17.
As the Pacific nation comes to terms with the devastation of its major city, it will still go to the polls on Jan.16 after a snap election was called in November.
The city center – where Johnson’s handicraft market is located – suffered major damage and access is still restricted for safety reasons.
Read here the full article published by Benar News on 13 January 2025.
Image by Benar News
In recognition of the gender gap in political representation, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) Nigeria has expressed support for the passage of a bill before the National Assembly to reserve special seats in national and state legislatures for women.
As part of its commitment to strengthen the country’s democracy, the group has also resolved to intensify its role in promoting credible elections and democratic governance, by supporting more electoral reforms.
IPAC has also resolved to uphold the rule of law, adhere to constitutional provisions by political parties and help to address issues such as voter apathy, electoral violence, and vote-buying through advocacy and civic engagement initiatives.
These resolutions were part of the communique issued by IPAC Nigeria, at the end of a three-day constitution review session held in Ikeja, Lagos recently.
Read here the full article published by The Nation Online on 8 January 2025.
Image by The Nation Online
Only 28 women stood for parliament out of 258 contestants, representing 10.85 per cent. Only three women won their seats. This represents 4.92 per cent of the 61 seats. It’s a drop from 5.26 per cent in the 2019 elections.
In Botswana, women make up 54 per cent of the eligible voters. Yet few occupy the corridors of power, where decisions and policies that affect them are made.
The country has been praised for being a model democracy. One of the reasons is that it has held regular elections since independence in 1966.
There are, however, flaws in Botswana’s democracy. One is that women are woefully under-represented in government.
I am a scholar of public policy in southern Africa. I am also a proponent of equal representation of women, who are a marginalised majority. In my research, I argue that women’s limited participation hinders the consolidation of democracy.
Democracy is inconceivable without political parties. They put into practice the principle of representation. They select, nominate and support candidates for political office. Botswana needs to focus attention on improving the role of political parties as gatekeepers to the democratic space.
Read here the full article published by The Eastleigh Voice on 15 December 2024.
Image by The Eastleigh Voice
Nearly half the world's population - 3.6 billion people - had major elections in 2024, but it was also a year that saw the slowest rate of growth in female representation for 20 years.
Twenty-seven new parliaments now have fewer women than they did before the elections - countries such as the US, Portugal, Pakistan, India, Indonesia and South Africa. And, for the first time in its history, fewer women were also elected to the European Parliament.
The BBC has crunched numbers from 46 countries where election results have been confirmed and found that in nearly two-thirds of them the number of women elected fell.
The data is from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) - a global organisation of national parliaments that collects and analyses election data.
There were gains for women in the UK, Mongolia, Jordan and the Dominican Republic, while Mexico and Namibia both elected their first female presidents.
However, losses in other places mean that the growth this year has been negligible (0.03%) - after having doubled worldwide between 1995 and 2020.
Read here the full article published by the BBC on 29 December 2024.
Image by BBC
The 2022 midterms have led to some new records for women candidates for the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and governor in various race and ethnicity groups, according to an analysis of candidate filings from CAWP. Asian American/Pacific Islander, Black, Latina/Hispanic, and white women have all set new candidacy records this year, though not at all levels of office.
CAWP began collecting data on candidate race in 2004 using a system of self-identification for candidate race and ethnicity determination. Because this data relies primarily on candidate response to CAWP’s self-ID query and our queries occasionally go unanswered, there remain a small number of candidates for whom we were unable to determine racial identification. This is alluded to when we say “at least” preceding a reported figure below. Additionally, because candidates may, for various reasons, exit political races and no longer appear on ballots, these numbers can change slightly moving forward.
Beginning this year, CAWP no longer reports an aggregate number of “women of color” in our data collections on candidates and officeholders and instead provides disaggregated data for all women by race and ethnicity. This change was guided by our desire to move away from treatment of women as monolithic and challenge the centering of whiteness as a default racial/ethnic category. Of particular note here, because multiracial women are included in counts for each group with which they identify, adding the numbers below will not yield the total number of women of color running for various offices in this year’s midterms.
Click here to access the data.
On 26 September 2021, Germans elected the 20th Bundestag. This election was special in many ways. The article analyses the electoral campaign, voting behaviour, turnout, and the formation of a new coalition government by using a gender and intersectional lens. Against the conceptual background of descriptive, substantive, and symbolic representation, we outline the implications of the election for gender and intersectional politics in the new German Bundestag and the government. In descriptive and symbolic terms, we find higher numbers of women (and of minorities) in the Bundestag and its leadership as well as in government; in substantive terms, we observe the presence of ‘critical actors’ and the commitment to progressive politics in the new ‘Ampel’ coalition. Hence, we see at least a chance for change in several key policy areas and social progress in the next 4 years.
Click here to read the full article published by Sage Journals on 7 July 2022.
With more and more women running for office, races between women candidates will become the norm — not a novelty. Shared Hurdles reveals how candidates’ race, political party, and gender interact to influence voter opinion when more than one woman is on the ballot.
Research on gender dynamics in politics has seldom studied races between two women candidates. This research helps to fill that gap — and give women the tools they need to resonate with voters in races against other women. Shared Hurdles shows that in an election between two women candidates, gender biases are still prevalent, and voters hold both women to a higher standard than they hold male candidates. Shared Hurdles is a timely update on how gender shapes politics, and it provides a framework for women candidates who are campaigning against other women.
Click here to access the report.
Despite repeated warnings, Australia’s two major political parties continue to make one big mistake – and one MP has issued a scathing rebuke.
The women chosen by Australia’s two major political parties to run in the upcoming federal election are predominantly chosen for seats they are unlikely to win.
Shocking statistics gathered by news.com.au reveal a huge disparity in the chances of women entering parliament compared to their male counterparts, with men more likely to be chosen to run for a seat already held by their party.
Click here to read the full article published by News.com.au on 23 March 2022.
In December 2020, a leading Kenyan political party official, Edwin Sifuna, made vulgar remarks against a woman member of parliament. While campaigning for their political allies in a by-election, Sifuna said the woman is “not attractive enough to rape”.
In January this year, controversial bishop David Gakuyo, who is seeking election as a member of parliament, made demeaning remarks about two women politicians. He accused them of seeking votes while “swinging bare behinds”.
Sifuna and Gakuyo later made half-hearted apologies through the police after complaints were lodged about the language they used. The National Cohesion and Integration Commission, a government agency tasked with taming the excesses of politicians, was largely silent.
Click here to read the full article published by Daily Maverick on 17 March 2022.
In this In brief, the authors consider lessons learned in the aftermath of women candidates’ defeat in the 18 November 2021 general election. They identify five intractable barriers to women’s election in Tonga: voters’ expectations of reciprocity in exchange for electoral support; deeply entrenched perceptions of men’s legitimacy as political leaders; untimely support for women candidates; an inhospitable political environment for electoral gender quotas; and a lack of accountability on gender equality commitments.
Click here to read the full article.