Elections

Mia Mottley, who shot to international fame during the Cop26 climate talks and oversaw Barbados’s break with the Queen last year, has won a second term as the Caribbean nation’s prime minister.

The 56-year-old’s Barbados Labour party (BLP) won all 30 seats, up from 29 in 2018, in an election marred by complaints that thousands of Covid-positive Bajans were denied a vote.

The First Lady, Aisha Buhari, has called for more concerted actions toward better recognition of the contributions that women make in national development. 

According to a statement by her spokesman, Aliyu Abdullahi, Aisha said power-sharing arrangements must reflect women’s contributions both within political parties and in government.

Women groups and Gender Focused Civil society organisation has called for more women participation in the forthcoming FCT area council election. According to the CSOs, women constitute half of the population in the country and form massive support during elections.

The Director Gender and Inclusivity Department INEC, Mrs. Blessing Obidegwu, gave the charge on Wednesday during a town hall meeting with the women groups and gender focused civil society organizations in Abuja.

Women politicians in the country, on Monday in Abuja, unveiled an online resource portal for women seeking elective positions in the 2023 general elections.

During the unveiling of the project tagged: ‘Nigerian Women Aspirants Website’, financed by an international human rights organization, the women politicians under the aegis of Women In Politics Forum, also said that the mode of party primaries was not enough to bring the needed change expected to be seen in the country’s political process.

In many parts of Papua New Guinea, fear of violence and harassment has caused a set back to the lives and small businesses of many women, but new candidates who now intend to enter politics aim to change this for the better.

“People within the community have approached me to stand for election - to revive the work and services my father had supported,” explains a local female candidate intending to enter politics.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organisation in Kenya, the Kenya Human Rights Commission, are publishing a report today, examining patterns of sexual and gender-based violence against women during election seasons in Kenya and call upon the State to take immediate preventive actions in view of the upcoming 2022 general elections.

An actress jailed for protesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s controversial citizenship law, the mother of a rape survivor, and a beauty pageant winner. These are the women leading India’s once-dominant Congress party as it seeks to reinvent itself in a hotly contested state election.