Elections

A group of Pacific women politicians and leaders have met in Fiji to find ways to boost the number of Pacific women in elected positions.

The Pacific has the lowest number of women in government in the world at just 4-point-7 percent.

Twenty women from seven Pacific Islands states came together for a workshop in Fiji last week, which was organised by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and the Fiji Women's Rights Movement

Efforts to boost the participation of women in Afghan politics are in serious jeopardy, an IWPR debate has heard.

Noor Mohammad Noor, a spokesman for the Independent Elections Commission (IEC), said that attitudes towards female members of parliament and provincial councillors remained "backward" and that it was proving difficult to change public perceptions.

Addressing more than 20 students from universities in Kabul and Nangarhar, he claimed legislation passed in July last year to reduce the number of provincial council seats reserved for women was a mistake.

A growing number of women are vying for seats in the Kentucky General Assembly this year.

Of the 220 candidates running for either the state House or Senate in the 2014 election cycle, about 20 percent are women.

That’s a five-point increase compared to four years ago when the same offices were up for a vote.

We invite you to read the full article published February 3, 2014

Women should have at least 100 of the 444 seats in the next parliament, the National Council for Women said in a statement Thursday.

Representation of women should be proportionate to their weight in society and their wide-scale participation in the constitutional referendum, NCW said, adding that an opportunity should be given to women to change the stereotypical idea of their role.

POLITICAL PARTIES HAVE been busy over recent weeks and months making selections for the upcoming local elections.

Research from Women for Election shows that of the 1278 selections made already by political parties, just 24 per cent are women.

Not all selections have been made, but to date, the majority of the large political parties are seriously lagging behind in achieving gender balance for their local candidates.

Photos from election day in Costa Rica, February 2, 2014

We invite you to see the full article published February 2, 2014

Jenny Pierce's recent piece about El Salvador on the Inter-American Development Bank's blog, Sin Miedos, questioned where women's voices fit into discussions surrounding the (in)famous gang truce brokered in 2012.

A state of emergency, streets paralyzed with protesters, the fatal shooting of a leading pro-government activist and an election campaign teetering on chaos may not sound like the script from a rising Southeast Asian economic powerhouse.

But for Thailand -- which manages to combine economic success and political mayhem in equal measure -- this weekend's elections are just another page in an eight-year struggle between supporters and opponents of Thaksin Shinawatra.