Elections
In-depth: More than 95 female candidates were elected in Iraq's election according to preliminary results, exceeding the 83-seat quota. But some say political parties are manipulating the system for electoral gain, rather than to empower women.
“Women set a historic record in the election,” Iraqi officials announced in a statement after the 10 October parliamentary vote.
Ninety-seven female candidates were elected to the 329-seat chamber, forming 29.4 percent of the next Iraqi parliament. This was 14 more seats than the quota for female MPs, set by Iraq’s election laws at 83, or 25 percent of the total.
Click here to read the full article published by The New Arab on 26 October 2021.
In Sunday's general election, 45 women were elected to the 465-seat House of Representatives, down two from the previous contest in 2017, despite a law promoting female participation in the political field, data showed Monday.
While the election was the first Lower House poll since Japan enacted the law in 2018, urging political parties to make efforts to field an equal number of male and female candidates, women accounted for 9.7% of the lower chamber members, falling 0.4 percentage point from 10.1% marked in the previous election.
There were 186 women among candidates who ran in the election, making up 17.7% of the total — the highest level on record, but still far from standing on par with men. A total of 24.2% of the female candidates landed a seat.
Click here to read the full article published by The Japan Times on 1 November 2021.
Harassment is common for women who run for office and female MPs comprise just 9.9% of lower house.
Mari Yasuda has come to dread checking her social media accounts. While a TV programme has tipped the candidate as “one to watch” in Japan’s general election this month, her anonymous correspondents make no secret of their belief that, as a woman, she should not be standing for parliament at all.
“They accuse me of sleeping with powerful men to get ahead or make abusive comments in calls to our office,” says Yasuda, who is contesting a seat in Hyogo prefecture for the opposition Constitutional Democratic party of Japan. “I receive emails from men remarking on my appearance or asking me for a date.”
Sexual harassment is becoming a fact of life for women who run for office in Japan, where female participation in politics is already among the lowest in the world. Despite the recent emergence of diversity and gender as topics of public debate – and signs that voters are more progressive than many of their representatives – the country’s politics have been immune to change, according to Yasuda.
Click here to read the full article published by The Guardian on 27 October 2021.
Less than a fifth of candidates in Japan’s upcoming election are female, unchanged from the last vote four years ago, indicating the percentage of women in one of the world’s most male-dominated parliaments is unlikely to increase.
More than 1,000 candidates are running for 465 seats in the Oct. 31 election but only 186 are female, data released early Wednesday showed. While an unprecedented two out of four candidates in a vote for leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party last month were women, efforts to improve gender parity in national politics have made scant progress.
Click here to read the full article published by Bloomberg on 20 October 2021.
TOKYO – Just 186 of the 1,051 candidates standing in Japan's House of Representatives election this month, or 17.7%, are women -- on par with the low level seen in the previous lower house race in 2017.
This is the first election since the enactment of the Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field, which calls on parties to make the numbers of male and female candidates as even as possible in Japan's elections. But the figures suggest Japan faces a rocky road to achieving this ideal.
The government has poured effort into the active participation of women in politics. The Cabinet approved a Fifth Basic Plan for Gender Equality at the end of 2020, which aimed to increase the proportion of female candidates in national elections to 35%. Nevertheless, women's participation in politics has not advanced.
Click here to read the full article published by The Mainichi on 20 October 2021.
BERLIN, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Two German politicians from the Greens have made history by becoming the first transgender women to win parliamentary seats in Sunday's national election.
Tessa Ganserer and Nyke Slawik stood for the Greens party, which came third in the election, increasing its share of the vote to 14.8% from 8.9% in 2017 and is set to play a pivotal role in the building of a new three-way coalition government.
"It is a historic victory for the Greens, but also for the trans-emancipatory movement and for the entire queer community," Ganserer, 44, told Reuters, adding that the results were a symbol of an open and tolerant society.
Topping the priority list for Ganserer, who was elected to Bavaria's regional parliament in 2013, is an easier procedure for ratifying a change of gender on identity documents.
Click here to read the full article published by Reuters on 28 September 2021.