Government of Solomon Islands Supports Temporary Special Measure Policy for Women in Parliament
Source:
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has moved a Motion in Parliament to consider the White Paper on the proposed new election system for Solomon Islands.
Apart from addressing some of the shortfalls in the current first past the post system, Prime Minister Sogavare says that one of the key purposes of this second White Paper is to address the issue of Women in Parliament.
Prime Minister Sogavare said the Electoral Reform Taskforce, through feedback from its various public consultations, recommends that should a Temporary Special Measure (TSM) policy be implemented, it would have to be implemented on the following basis:
- There shall be 10 additional seats; the constituency for each of the 10 additional seats shall be the whole of the province (9) and Honiara City.
- The figure 10 of additional seats was considered a politically convenient number given that it is a win-win for all provinces as each of them and Honiara City will have one additional seat; the selection of women who will contest these TSM seats is explained in section 4.2 and Attachment II of the White Paper.
- The criterion to be used in selecting the women who has won the Province/Honiara City TSM seat is the Highest Ratio of ‘votes won to votes cast’ of women who contest elections in all constituencies in a province or Honiara City. This means that there is no separate election for TSM seats. There will be one General Election only for the existing 50 seats and the 10 additional TSM seats for women.
Click here to read the full article published by Solomon Times Online on 11 April 2017.
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has moved a Motion in Parliament to consider the White Paper on the proposed new election system for Solomon Islands.
Apart from addressing some of the shortfalls in the current first past the post system, Prime Minister Sogavare says that one of the key purposes of this second White Paper is to address the issue of Women in Parliament.
Prime Minister Sogavare said the Electoral Reform Taskforce, through feedback from its various public consultations, recommends that should a Temporary Special Measure (TSM) policy be implemented, it would have to be implemented on the following basis:
- There shall be 10 additional seats; the constituency for each of the 10 additional seats shall be the whole of the province (9) and Honiara City.
- The figure 10 of additional seats was considered a politically convenient number given that it is a win-win for all provinces as each of them and Honiara City will have one additional seat; the selection of women who will contest these TSM seats is explained in section 4.2 and Attachment II of the White Paper.
- The criterion to be used in selecting the women who has won the Province/Honiara City TSM seat is the Highest Ratio of ‘votes won to votes cast’ of women who contest elections in all constituencies in a province or Honiara City. This means that there is no separate election for TSM seats. There will be one General Election only for the existing 50 seats and the 10 additional TSM seats for women.
Click here to read the full article published by Solomon Times Online on 11 April 2017.