Elections
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Women make up more than half of the voters in Sri Lanka , but not a single one will be on the ballot in Saturday’s presidential election .
The island nation of more than 22 million people is voting for a president to take its economy forward after it went through an unprecedented financial crisis two years ago that led to the ouster of its head of government. The election will allow more than 17 million eligible voters to choose from a record 38 candidates. But women — who account for nearly 9 million voters — will have no gender representation.
Read here the full article published by the Washington Post on 21 September 2024.
Image credits: Washington Post
2. Global Trends
2.3. Rights
2.3.4. Gender Equality
The Gender Equality subfactor measures power distribution by gender and female participation in civil society organizations, the ratio of female-to-male mean years of schooling and the proportion of lower-chamber legislators who are female. It also measures exclusion by gender, women’s empowerment and women’s political and economic rights.
While Gender Equality has not made notable improvements globally since 2018 (eight countries saw advances, and five saw declines), there have been important markers of progress. These include the passage of a bill to implement a gender quota for the lower house of parliament and state assemblies in India and a landmark bill that would guarantee extra seats for women in provincial assemblies in the Solomon Islands (Brechenmacher 2023; RNZ 2024; Solomon Islands Government 2024).
Mexico is also a noteworthy case, as it sets a high standard in terms of the range of mechanisms it has in place to ensure women’s political participation. In 2024 voters chose Claudia Sheinbaum to be Mexico’s first woman president. Additionally, at the time of the writing of this report, the heads of the Supreme Court and the Electoral Tribunal were both women, as were the presidents of the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies and the National Electoral Institute (INE). Building on previous amendments that had gradually introduced gender parity, a groundbreaking 2019 constitutional reform established ‘parity in everything’ as a permanent principle in all branches of government to guarantee women’s access to politics, government and the administration of justice (Ravel 2024; Piscopo and Vázquez Correa 2023).
Although high levels of violence, particularly against women, have been an issue in this election year (INEGI 2022; Piscopo and Vázquez Correa 2023; Harrison-Cripps 2024; Calderón 2024), strong legislation and policies have facilitated the monitoring and sanctioning of gender-based political violence, including through a National Registry of Sanctioned Persons for Violence against Women in Politics and the INE’s collaboration with platforms regarding digital-based political violence (INE 2024; Meta 2024).
Read here the full report published by International IDEA on 17 September 2024.
Kamala Harris is at the top of a major party ticket running for president. Some people have celebrated her candidacy, hoping that it will excite voters enough to elect the first woman president.
But the glass ceiling that stymied Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in 2016 is still sturdy at other levels of political office across the country.
My research with Diana Da In Lee, Yamil Velez and Chris Warshaw shows that in cities and counties, women remain underrepresented among local officeholders in nearly every political office.
Like many other characteristics of officeholders, such as occupation or race, the gender of elected officials influences the way they make policy. Research has shown that women, and especially working-class women, elected to state and federal government offices in countries around the world make different spending decisions. Having more women in elected offices might matter especially at the local level, where the details of many of these federal or state spending decisions actually play out.
Read here the full article published by The Conversation on 16 September 2024.
Image credits: The Conversation
In Jordan, the path to political participation for women is still paved with challenges. While progress has been made toward inclusiveness, many barriers persist, making it difficult for women to fully engage in politics and elections.
EU election observation missions always observe women's participation in the electoral process as candidates, politicians, members of the election administration and voters. Here is the section about women's participation in our Preliminary Statement:
"Social practice overshadows the inclusion dimension of the legal framework when it comes to the participation of women, youth and persons with disabilities in political life."
"While the modernisation process and the quota system were praised by stakeholders for aiming toward inclusiveness, deep-rooted cultural, social, and economic barriers continue to shape women's political involvement. Lack of funding poses a significant challenge, especially registration fees and campaign costs were considered high. Youth and persons with disabilities face similar obstacles. Women often experience coercion from their families and tribes regarding voting and contesting. Positively, some women candidates emphasised that the new provision for publicly employed candidates to be able to take unpaid leave, instead of resigning from their job, was essential to their opportunity to stand."
Read here the full article published by the European Union Election Observation Mission Jordan 2024 on 16 September 2024.
Image by European Union Election Observation Mission Jordan 2024
Men are far outpacing women in the total amount contributed in 2024 congressional races, according to a new analysis from The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. The latest insights from CAWP’s Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 project come from a nationwide analysis of donors to congressional races on the Donor Gaps: Demographics Analysis page of Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024.
Analyzing data from election 2024 donations made during calendar year 2024 to all major party congressional candidates in the running as of July 15, 2024, CAWP researchers find that:
■The total amount contributed by men to 2024 congressional candidates vastly exceeds the amount contributed by women. Men have provided 63% of all money contributed to congressional candidates with 37% provided by women.
■However, women fare better as a proportion of unique donors to congressional candidates than as a proportion of total money contributed. Women constitute 52% of unique donors to congressional candidates.
■Women are providing a higher share of the total amount contributed to Democratic than Republican congressional candidates. Whereas women have contributed 42% of all money given to Democratic congressional candidates, women have only contributed 29% of all money given to Republican congressional candidates.
■Women from historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups are especially underrepresented as donors to congressional candidates:
⦿Black women have donated just 1% of all money contributed to 2024 congressional candidates.
⦿Latinas have donated just 1% of all money contributed to 2024 congressional candidates.
⦿Asian American women have donated just 1% of all money contributed to 2024 congressional candidates.
⦿Women have donated 45% of all money contributed to Democratic women congressional candidates compared with 41% of all money contributed to Democratic men congressional candidates.
⦿Women have donated 30% of all money contributed to Republican women congressional candidates compared with 28% of all money contributed to Republican men congressional candidates.
⦿For example, 2% of the money raised by Democratic women U.S. House incumbents who are white came from Black donors compared with 8% of the funds contributed to Democratic U.S. House incumbent candidates who are Black women.
Read here the full article published by Center for American Women and Politics on 16 September 2024.
Image credits: Center for American Women and Politics
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, The Carter Center, the National Democratic Institute, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and the Kofi Annan Foundation announced today the release of Model Commitments for Advancing Genuine and Credible Elections.
With democratic elections and institutions facing growing threats globally, it is critical to have actionable commitments that help improve, defend, and expand election integrity. The Model Commitments provides a resource with specific steps government leaders and democracy advocates can take to help strengthen democracy and elections, including ways to expand dialogue on key electoral issues. The Model Commitments are intended to benefit everyone involved in electoral processes and systems, including voters, candidates, election officials, election observers, and others.
The Model Commitments outline five sets of electoral integrity commitments — to protect Genuine Elections, Legal Framework, Election Administration, Electoral Accountability, and Information Integrity.
They draw on existing international norms, standards, and best practices for democratic elections, including most that are catalogued in the Carter Center’s Election Obligations and Standards Database and the Election Obligations and Standards Handbook.
Democratic electoral processes face constant pressures and changing circumstances in countries around the world. To help build public trust in election integrity and democratic governance, the Model Commitments are designed to reflect changing contexts and efforts to strengthen democracy in the face of new and evolving challenges.
This resource lays out ways for governments to affirm efforts to implement these commitments or to pledge an intention to apply them in a timely manner through appropriate electoral reform measures.
The Model Commitments for Advancing Genuine and Credible Elections is supported by like-minded organizations that share a commitment to the principles embodied in the Model Commitments. The organizations listed below have indicated their support for the Model Commitments. Additional supporting organizations will be added annually and announced around each International Day of Democracy.
·Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL)
·Election Watch EU
·Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA)
·European Partnership for Democracy (EPD)
·European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE)
·Experts in Democracy, Governance, and Elections (EDGE)
·Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD)
·Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD)
Read here the full Models Commitments published by the NDI on 15 September 2024.
In late 2018 and early 2019 UN Women interviewed 87 per cent of the women who ran for Parliamentary election (75 of the 86 women; of the 113 women who registered to run, 86 made it on to candidate lists). This report summarizes their stories and experiences as candidates and looks at issues of: violence against women in politics, financial constraints and campaign management, media and image portrayal, violence harassment and discrimination.
Click here to see the report.
Introduction
I was targeted because my husband is from a different community that was perceived to hold a differing political opinion from the one of the dominant community we live in.’
Survivor of sexual violence during the 2017 elections interviewed in this research Electoral-related sexual violence (ERSV) is a form of sexual violence, including rape, gang rape, sexual assault and defilement, associated with electoral processes and/or intended to influence or achieve a political end within an electoral process. In Kenya, sexual violence has been a recurrent feature of elections, which have been marred by deadly violence, unrest and serious human rights violations and abuses. Outbreaks of sexual violence during elections have been documented since the 1990s.Following the post-election violence in 2007/2008, the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence (CIPEV), known as the ‘Waki Commission’, documented 900 cases of sexual violence perpetrated by security agents, militia groups and civilians against both men, boys, women and girls in a context of large scale violence, mass displacement and more than 1,000 deaths.
CIPEV provided critical recommendations for reform and was followed by the historic adoption in 2010 of a progressive Constitution with a robust Bill of Rights. Since 2010, an impressive set of laws, policies and standard operating procedures have been developed on prevention and response to sexual violence. Yet, during the general elections held in August and October 2017, within a context of localised violence, large numbers of cases of sexual violence perpetrated by persons in uniform and civilians were again documented. According to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), at least 201 Kenyans – most of them women and girls — were subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence; [4] however the actual figure is likely higher due to under-reporting and the fact that KNCHR documented these in 11 of the 47 counties.
Click here to see the report.
The Report on Gender-Sensitive Parliaments is the result of a two-year research project. It follows up on a previous IPU publication, Equality in Politics: A Survey of Women and Men in Parliaments (2008). That Survey had found that women were overwhelmingly the main drivers of progress in gender equality in parliament, but that parliaments, as institutions, must also shoulder their share of the responsibility. This finding begs the questions: What are parliaments doing to foster gender equality? What policies inform gender equality efforts? Are the institutional structures of parliaments around the world mindful of both men and women? In short, are parliaments gender-sensitive?
The Report seeks to provide answers to these questions. Simply put, a gender-sensitive parliament is one that responds to the needs and interests of both men and women in its structures, operations, methods and work. This publication not only provides an important assessment of the gender sensitivity of the world's parliaments, but also identifies key steps parliaments can take to become gender-sensitive institutions that contribute to the achievement of gender equality.
Click here to see the report.
Political parties act as gatekeepers, meaning that improvements in the representation of women depend on parties’ willingness to nominate women candidates. Previous research suggests that party characteristics and gender quotas largely explain women’s nominations, but overlooks the political context in which parties operate. This study highlights the gendered outcomes that occur when parties make nomination decisions in times of public discontent, namely increasing political distrust and increasing perceived corruption. We theorize that parties hold similar biases to voters: gender stereotypes that regard women as more trustworthy and honest should advantage women as political trust falls and perceptions of corruption rise. We hypothesize that parties nominate larger percentages of women in these circumstances. Using two waves of data from over 100 political parties in 18 Latin American countries, we find that parties nominate more women when a large proportion of the public distrusts the national legislature, providing support for the theory.
Click here to see the academic article.
Women ran for and were elected to office in record numbers in the 2018 election. They made historic gains across levels of office and reached new milestones for women’s political representation. But not all women achieved record levels of success in 2018. Republican women’s representation dropped across offices and within their party.
The progress for all women in election 2018 should also be put into important context. First, despite breaking records for candidacy and officeholding, women – who are just over half of the population – were still underrepresented among all candidates and remain less than one-third of elected officials.
Finally, measuring progress for women in electoral politics means looking beyond the numbers. When considering the gender and intersectional dynamics at play in U.S. campaigns, it is clear that there is much progress left to make in creating equitable conditions for success for women and men in American elections.
Click here to see the report.
The report on “The Empowerment of Women in Politics and the 6 th Legislature National Assembly Elections 2018” is an analysis of the data and views of Cambodian women’s participation in politics, especially the process of the 6th Legislature National Assembly (NA) Elections 2018.
This report looks in particular at the women’s political empowerment and elections; number of women candidates, measures for how to select women candidats, policies of political parties for promoting women’s political participation, political party platforms on women’s and children’s issues, challenges facing women both as voters and candidates including violence against women in politics. Also, it shows about women’s opinions on electoral progress, and activities related to promoting women’s participation in politics as well as the outcome of elected women representative from the single party CPP which dominated the election and the outcome. It also provides an overview of a rapid survey on “The reason of women voters who voted or have indelible ink on their finger and women voters who did not go to vote or have no indelible ink on their finger” conducted by Women Volunteer Citizens throughout the four provincial target area of COMFREL a day after the election and two case studies. The report closes with a set of recommendations to improve gender equality and women’s political empowerment in Cambodia.
Click here to see the report.