Elections

A furious crowd gathered in central Seoul last month to protest against the policies of a man who isn't even in power.

Waving signs and wearing white sashes emblazoned with the words "Vote for Women," they accused presidential candidate Yoon Suk Yeol of attempting to appeal to anti-feminists to garner support ahead of the election.

"You don't deserve to be a presidential candidate, Yoon," the mainly female crowd chanted. "Go away."

The plan to have five regional seats reserved for women beginning in the general election this year has been shelved, a senior government official told a parliamentary committee yesterday.

Ivan Pomaleu, the secretary to the Department of Prime Minister and National Executive Council, told the committee looking into gender-based violence, that Cabinet on Dec 15 last year directed some State agencies to deliberate on the matter.

Nicola Sturgeon said she fears the forthcoming council elections will see equal representation go “backwards” as women are reluctant to enter the “toxic” world of politics.

Speaking at an event ahead of International Women’s Day, the First Minister highlighted that only three parliaments in the entire world have 50% female representation.

As election campaign enters final stages, the two leading candidates have been accused of pandering to sexism to win the votes of aggrieved young men.

The identity of South Korea’s next leader will be determined this week by the economy, housing prices and incomes, but the road to the presidential Blue House will also be dotted with the wreckage of the country’s poisonous gender politics.

After a quarter of a century of democratic experience that followed another 25 years of a revolutionary process that put women’s emancipation at the centre of the revolutionary discourse, women in Mozambique still face social, economic and political exclusions that impact their participation and representation in politics in general and in electoral processes in particular, while constituting 51 per cent of the population and 53 of the electorate.

Enhancing Women's Political Participation in Africa (Women in Political Participation (WPP) is a Pan-African gender project on the different facets of Women and Politics in Africa. Funded by Sida and implemented by International IDEA, it aims to advance gender equality in politics and governance, in line with the Maputo Protocol of 2003, various associated sub-regional protocols and standards, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).