Local Government

Five years back something historic happened. The 2013 Rwandan Parliamentary elections ushered in a record-breaking 64 per cent of seats for women candidates, making Rwanda the top country for women in politics.

Two Democrats are poised to become the first Muslim women in Congress, offering a sharp counterpoint to the anti-Muslim policies and sentiment surfacing in Washington and across the country.

On a cloudy afternoon this summer, Christine Hallquist, a former utility executive from Vermont, listened closely as Danica Roem, the Virginia state delegate who won national recognitionwhen she became the first transgender person elected to her state’s Legislature, offered tips as the pair canvassed a stark residential neighborhood here.

Gender quotas should be introduced next year for the local elections, the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) has said.

Just 21 per cent of local councillors are women and it would take another 200 years to achieve gender parity at the current rate, NWCI director Orla O’Connor told the Parnell Summer School in Avondale, Co Wicklow.

Voters head to the polls in Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont on Tuesday. This week’s round of primary voting will once again set the stage for more history-making moments for women in politics. Voters head to the polls in Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont on Tuesday. Those ballots feature candidates poised to break barriers on behalf of the LGBTQ community, women of color and gender parity in politics as a whole.

By Kate Zernike,

The energy in the midterms is working against female Republican candidates who are reluctant or unable to claim any advantage to being a woman among voters.

Diane Harkey, the Republican candidate for California’s 49th Congressional District, recognizes that President Trump “doesn’t make women real comfortable.”

MJ Hegar does not hold back. "I'm an ass kicking, motorcycle-riding, Texas Democrat. That's who I am!"

She says that emphatically, unblinkingly and unapologetically to a constituent at a political meet-and-greet in a suburban Austin, Texas, home. And she is talking to someone she needs to win over.