Elections

In Ireland, the rate of female participation in politics is one of the lowest in Europe

Just 15 per cent of Dail members are women, which ranks 5th in Europe, according to European Parliament figures collected after the general election in 2011. 

Last year, the department of the environment introduced legislation under the Electoral Act 1997 stipulating that all political parties provide a minimum of 30 per cent female candidates at the next general election or risk losing 50 per cent of their state funding.

 I moved away from Zimbabwe almost 15 years ago. In the early years I inhaled all the news I could; watching in shock as my home country descended into crisis. Each visit home and conversations with friends and family became about what used to be, and with that came a resignation of sorts to the status quo as we carried on with our lives.

Serbia, an aspiring European Union member, succeeded in increasing the percentage of women in its Parliament substantially within the last year. It is consequently ahead of the United States and many other developed countries and older democracies by several spots on a global female Parliamentarian leader list.

In the last session of the Serbian Parliament, women made up 55 members out of 250 total or roughly 22% of members in the Serbian National Assembly. This placed Serbia 56th on the Inter-Parliamentary Union global list, tying the Czech Republic. 

With constitutional quotas for interest group seats in their favour and all political parties legally bound to respect women's quota of at least 30 per cent of their parliamentary nominees, women may retain or even widen their majority in the Chamber of Deputies after the upcoming September elections.

PARIS -- The politician known as “NKM” is a rising star in France - a tough, military-trained engineer first elected to the National Assembly at the age of just 29 and tipped by some as a future president.

And what is all-the-more remarkable about Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet is that she has managed to fight her way through the rampant sexism of French politics.

She was twice told by two of her own party’s leaders that she’d missed out on becoming a government minister because she was pregnant.

Kuwait City, Asharq Al-Awsat—Kuwaitis went to the polls this week to elect their third parliament in 17 months. Despite having the oldest and most powerful parliament in the Arab Gulf, Kuwait has a turbulent political scene: no parliament has served its full term since 2003.