Local Government

Ruwa Romman is entertaining the idea of running for office. The 28-year-old from Duluth envisions herself running on a platform focused on health care, education, social justice and the economy. She also wants to shatter stereotypes and challenge barriers placed on Muslim women.

“The stereotype is that Muslim women don’t vote. They do,” Romman said. “I got politically engaged outside of my Muslim identity, but then I quickly realized my Muslim identity was a necessity to bring with me in this journey.”

Every year, LGBTQ political candidates smash through rainbow ceilings in the fight to represent their communities. 2022 should be no different, with dozens of LGBTQ people already slated to run for both state and federal offices.

But here are five LGBTQ candidates we’re especially keeping our eyes on as they run to make history in 2022.

A Scottish council which has no female councillors hopes to encourage more women to stand in next May's local government elections. In the last elections in 2017, for the first time in its history, no women were elected to the Western Isles' Comhairle nan Eilean Siar.

A sea of change is washing across New South Wales local government as more women and young people take up seats as councillors. Until recently, 22-year-old Imogen Draisma could not see herself reflected in the local council running her home city of Kiama, in the Illawarra.

"My ideas and [I] were not represented by the people that were purporting to represent me," Cr Draisma said.

In just two years, the pandemic has threatened decades worth of progress towards gender equality. As of December 2020, women suffered a net loss of over 5 million jobs due to COVID-19; in 2021, one in three women reported that they may end up downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce entirely if conditions don’t improve in the United States.

Civil society activists have demanded political parties to award tickets to women aspirants for the local government elections to bring them into the national mainstream.

“If women are not given a leadership role, we cannot expect economic change in our lives and status,” Yasmin Bibi, a former tehsil councillor, told a women-only gathering organised by the Saibaan Development Organisation in Balakot on Friday.

Lorraine Grillo was named as first deputy mayor; Anne Williams-Isom as deputy mayor for health and human services; Meera Joshi as deputy mayor for operations; Maria Torres-Springer as deputy mayor for economic and workforce development; and Sheena Wright as deputy mayor for strategic initiatives.

During the campaign for local elections in the West Bank, many female candidates’ faces were replaced by a rose or a silhouette on voter lists and campaign posters.

About 65% of eligible voters turned out for the first round of voting on December 11. The second round, which will take place on March 26, will determine the composition of 66 local councils for large municipalities.

More than 550 women contested local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday, the election commission said.

The is the first time that local polls are being held in districts that used to be part of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) until recently. Polling started at 8am and closed at 5pm in the first phase of the polls in 17 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.