Elections

Thirty Saudi women have taken seats in Saudi Arabia's Shura Council, for the first time in the conservative kingdom's history, as they were sworn in before King Abdullah at his palace in the capital, Riyadh.

The women took their seats in the same room with their 130 male colleagues and were sworn in collectively, state television said on Tuesday.

(Source: AlJazeera)

Last week women from different political parties met in Harare to, among other things, discuss women's participation in the forth-coming referendum and elections. The meeting, convened by the Women in Politics Support Unit also sought to ensure that women deliberately use the forth-coming elections to assert their priorities in the governance of Zimbabwe.

The meeting highlighted the growing need for women's participation in politics on the lower and upper levels of the national body politick.

The National Commission for Women and its counterparts in the states on Wednesday said they will meet the Prime Minister and the leaders of opposition in both the houses of Parliament to press for 33 per cent quota for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

(Source: Deccan Herald)

Human rights activists and civil society organisations continue to seek stronger political representation for Egyptian women in parliament, ahead of elections for the lower house of the legislative authority this year.

The Shura Council, which holds full legislative powers until those elections are held, approved the elections law and another law that regulates political rights on January 19th.

Boosting female political representation at July’s national election was the topic of a round-table discussion attended by dozens of political-party representatives, though none from the ruling party, in Phnom Penh yesterday.

Civil-society groups are pushing for women to account for 30 per cent of successful candidates at the poll come July, while the government has long been party to a 2015 UN millennium development goal of 25 per cent of candidates at the commune level and 30 per cent in the National Assembly.

Members of Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP), a women's rights organisation, yesterday demanded that the government ensure one-third of the parliamentary seats for women through direct elections.

They also demanded for the reallocation of electoral constituencies, wherein women can be elected member of the parliament from the constituency they belong.

The BMP members made the demands at a gathering on Manik Mia Avenue in the capital.

The detractors' script reads Martha Karua is a intransigent, tough, hard, mean lady and we saw this in the lead up to the coalition government and she has tried to soften her stand by wearing African prints, by going into studios to perform with rap musicians, by speaking in Kiswahili all the time.  Once she is in power she is going to be mean and dictatorial in her own right.

In one of the regions with the lowest number of women in politics, both governmental and non-governmental leaders met in Beijing for the first “Asia-Pacific Workshop on Promoting and Monitoring Women’s Political Participation.”

Jointly organized by UN Women China and the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), 70 participants from the Asia-Pacific region took part in this two-day workshop, from 29-30 January.

Yet just like the early weeks of a new hockey season, there’s still a long way to go to achieve true gender parity in Canadian politics. From the way Parliament is scheduled and debate is structured, to the way political parties and the media operate, there remains a strong masculine narrative streaming through our political culture.

(Read complete article at: The Globe and Mail)