Elections
The European Union has intensified efforts to advance women’s political participation through a high-level strategy meeting held in Abuja, ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general election.
Nigeria has long struggled with low female representation in politics despite being a signatory to several international and regional frameworks promoting gender equality, including the Beijing Declaration and the African Union’s Protocol on Women’s Rights.
Although women constitute nearly half of the country’s population and play significant roles as voters and grassroots mobilisers, their presence in elective and appointive positions has remained consistently low since the return to democratic rule in 1999.
According to a statement by the EU on Tuesday, the meeting was organised by the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre and the Nigerian Women Trust Fund, both cohort members of the European Union’s flagship democratic governance programme, the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria, in collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law.
The meeting, themed Advancing Women’s Political Leadership: Strengthening Pathways to Inclusive Representation in 2027, brought together lawmakers, civil society actors, development partners, and political stakeholders to assess progress on women’s inclusion and the proposed Special Seats Bill, while mapping strategies ahead of the next electoral cycle.
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.”
In in the context of promoting democracy, equality and equal opportunities, UNDP partnered with the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) to develop a report on observing parliamentary elections from a gender perspective in order to promote women’s rights and political participation.
The report highlights the obstacles and gaps women face and provides details the social, cultural, political and economic obstacles and challenges that restrict their access to Parliament. The report assesses the participation of female voters, women candidates and political parties in the electoral process.
This activity is funded by the European Union, United States Agency for International Development, and German Cooperation.
Source: UNDP
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.