Elections

As the 2015 election steadily approaches, and campaign strategies by various politicians and political offices holders already in full gear, women are being charged to gear up to vie for elective positions in the country.

Though female participation helps in terms of making specific policies related to women, MNA Bushra Gohar of Awami National Party thinks serving women is not the only purpose of a woman politician.“We shouldn’t be asking these questions now. Women politicians have played an active role in everyway. Why is nobody asking a male politician whether his joining politics has helped men in anyway?” she asks. Gohar believes that women make their own space in a party and that space is never available on a platter.

IT’S mind-boggling. After more than 50 years since independence, and 13 general elections the percentage of women candidates being offered to the electorate has never broken through 10 per cent ceiling. At first like many, I welcomed the news that GE13 sees a 40 per cent increase of women candidates — up to 168 compared to the 120 fielded in the 2008 general election. It sounded like a big healthy number and was trumpeted as such by the news media.

Three Saudi women running as candidates for the Makkah Chamber of Commerce and Industry's (MCCI) board of directors only managed to garner a paltry four votes in the recently concluded elections.
Amana Abdullah Zawavi, who fought in her second elections, received one vote; Aziza Abdul Qader also secured one vote;

With no strict provisions on female representation, legislation often overlooks the rights of women, according to expert witnesses at a judicial review of the 2012 Legislative Election Law at the Constitutional Court on Thursday. According to the National Commission on Violence against Women, there were 282 new bylaws enacted in 2012 that discriminate

Latin American culture is usually associated with being a chauvinistic society (known as machismo), particularly when it comes to how male individuals have historically been in positions of political power. This situation has changed over the past two decades, as several female politicians have become presidents of their respective nations.