Campaigns

Maysoun Qawasmi does a TV interview in her Hebron office. She leads the first list of all women candidates for city council elections. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron are gearing up for a municipal election in October. The last time residents of Hebron were able to choose city officials directly was back in 1976. And this time around, voters will have also have a novel choice. One of the candidate lists on the ballot is made up entirely of women.

Renowned media personality Wanjiru Chege has resigned to embark on her bid for the Women Representative seat for Murang'a County. The Coro FM presenter who was also the controller of commercial radio services in the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation officially tabled her resignation letter on Monday.

The Pacific lags behind much of the world when it comes to women in parliament and Australia could do much better too.

One group has been working for the last 18 years to get Australian women into politics.

They've helped elect 153 women to parliament, and created a model that other countries are looking to.

The group is called Emily's List.

Listen to the interview at Radio Australia, published 3 September 2012.

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said that women are his "weakness" and added he was convinced that they will be the ones who win him the presidency next month when he faces off at the ballot box against President Hugo Chavez.

The 40-year-old former governor and attorney interrupted his speech during a rally Saturday in Tocuyito, a city in the central state of Carabobo, to confess that he was "impressed with how beautiful the women are" in that state.

Water and Irrigation Minister Charity Ngilu launched her presidential bid on Sunday and pledged to focus on women and the youth empowerment if elected Kenya's fourth President in next year's General Elections.

Launching her bid on the Narc party at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, the Kitui Central MP said she was confident of succeeding President Kibaki in her second attempt for the country's top job.

Ngilu said that the youth and women have adversely been affected by the economic policies that do not favour them.

Park Geun-hye has won her party's nomination to run as presidential candidate for the upcoming elections in December. If elected, Park would become the nation's first female head of state.

Park Geun-hye is the daughter of South Korea's late military dictator Park Chung-hee. Surveys place the conservative lawmaker ahead of all other potential candidates in this December's polls.

"I plan to herald in a new era of unity of all people," Park, 60, said on Monday following her landslide victory at her party's nomination convention.

THE Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has agreed to reduce by half, the Sh500,000 it was demanding as nomination fee for any of the women hoping to join the country representative race.

TheSh500,000 amount is among the proposals which the IEBC has made in its proposed elections guidelines and rules. The proposal, exclusively reported by the Star,elicited widespread condemnation from a cross section of leaders in civil society, religious as well as political groups.

Two women are running for president: Amal Abdi Ibrahim and Asha Ahmed Abdalla.

In announcing her candidature, Asha Ahmed Abdalla, a member of parliament, accused the current government of favouring corruption and intimidation in the parliament.

This is the second time she runs in the presidential race: in 2004 she was defeated by former president Abdullahi Yusuf. While Amal Abdi Ibrahim, 37, who has been living for 20 years in Finland, announced that if elected she would fight for widows of war and single mothers.