Ecuador’s youngest mayor killed, a missed opportunity in Somalia, tiny gains in global share of women MPs: All you need to know about women in politics from March
#WomenLead (Issue 148): Your monthly round-up on women in politics
Hello, and welcome to the March edition of #WomenLead!
We hope you’ve had a buzzing and bountiful March. In India, where we are, election season has officially commenced and politics is the flavour (and will continue to be so) for a bunch of weeks to come. Is your country going to polls this year too? If so, do write to tell us about what the experience is like for you. We’d love to hear!
In this month’s edition, we bring you updates from Ecuador, India, Iran, South Korea, North Macedonia, Portugal and Somalia. But we begin with the findings from IPU’s latest report on women in parliaments.
In case you missed last month’s edition, you can read it here.
Representation Watch
Taking stock of global progress on women’s political representation
Globally, women made up 26.9 percent of all MPs at the beginning of 2024, data released by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in its annual flagship report, Women in Parliament, shows. This is marginally up from a year ago when the global share of female MPs was 26.5 percent (and global progress on this metric seems to be on the slow-down). Among regions, the Americas continue to have the highest share of women in Parliaments (35.1 percent), followed by Europe (31.6 percent), Sub-Saharan Africa (27.3 percent), the Pacific (22.5 percent), Asia (21.4 percent) and West Asia and North Africa (what IPU called “MENA”) at 16.5 percent.
The report dives into the elections that took place in 2023 – 52 countries held parliamentary elections last year and across them women accounted for 27.6 percent of elected or appointed MPs – a 1.4-percentage-point improvement as compared to the previous polls in these same countries.
Read the press release and the full report here (Disclaimer: I worked on drafting this year’s edition of the report).
Election Watch
Tracking women among candidates and winners
🔮 Looking ahead: Before we dive into updates from specific countries, here’s IPU’s analysis looking at the ‘Super Election Year’ and what it may mean for women’s representation, with a focus on some big elections from around the globe.
🇮🇷 IRAN: Iran held the first round of its parliamentary polls in March to elect 245 of the 290 members. This was the first election since the tragic death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 and the widespread protests that followed. Only 11 women were elected in the election that saw the lowest voter turnout since 1979 - the year that saw the Islamic revolution in the country. The second round of polling is expected in May.
🇵🇹 PORTUGAL: Early estimates suggest that 76 women will become MPs after the Parliamentary polls held in March. In the previous polls of 2022, 85 women were elected to the 230-member legislature.
🇮🇳 INDIA: India will hold Parliamentary elections from April to June to elect members of the 18th Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament). Just days into the official announcement of the dates and we have already seen an unsparing serving of tasteless misogynist comments from all corners of the political spectrum.
Politicians (male, female alike) have said some obnoxious things such as what the ongoing “rate” in a constituency may have been after a female candidate was announced as candidate from a constituency called “Mandi” which roughly translates to a market in English, or that another female candidate was only “fit to cook”, or that a sitting CM should identify who her father was because she said she was the daughter of the state in more than one state. (All the nasty details are in the links, but the culprits come from all kinds of political leanings, age, region, gender, indicating this is a problem of the political culture, not just specific parties and individuals).
🚨Watch out for: April will see South Korea go to polls to elect the next set of 300 MPs. Coming on the heels of the 2022 Presidential polls that saw a backlash against feminism become a key issue, and a growing ideological divide between its young men and women, this will be an important election to watch out for from a gender perspective.
On-the-job updates
Spotlighting women’s experiences in political office
Brigitte Garcia, Ecuador's youngest mayor, has been killed. Garcia was found shot dead in her car along with her press officer on March 24 in San Vicente town of which she was the mayor. Ecuador has seen a number of politicians killed in the past one year, including presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, Agustín Intriago, mayor of Manta, and Puerto López’s mayoral candidate Omar Menéndez. The murders are being attributed to growing gang violence in the country and Ecuador is currently in the state of emergency. Garcia was only 26 years old when she was elected a mayor in 2023. She had a degree in nursing and was particularly focused on improving access to drinking water in her municipality.
Bisera Kostadinovska Stojchevska, the Culture Minister of North Macedonia, shared her experience of being a politician during a TV show. Her words and sentiments echoed the experiences of female politicians from around the world. She said that as a female politician, she and her family were constantly under attack. This happened online but also in the real world. She also questioned the media:
"Perhaps a year into my mandate, the most common questions were not what I would stand for as a minister, but questions about my private life. In an interview, I asked if they ask my male colleagues those questions, and they said no, no. That's why I always try to protect my family," she said.
Policy Watch
Because policy shifts matter
Somalia has recently amended its constitution after weeks of debate – the changes include amendments to the first four chapters of the country’s provisional constitution. Ahead of the amendments, women MPs from the country had been pushing for the amended constitution to include a 30 percent quota for women in politics. However, the demand did not see the light of the day.
Instead, as per the information shared by journalist Harun Maruf, article 47(7) of the amended constitution says the constitution “ensures the participation of women in the legislative councils and political parties, and the quota for women will be stated in special rules adopted by the federal parliament of Somalia.”
Reading List
The more one learns, there’s only more to learn
“Women in power in 2023: New data shows progress but wide regional gaps”: UN Women
“We need to do better by our women leaders”: UNDP Pacific office
“The solidarity of two women from across party lines has rattled the old guard. That can only be a good thing”: Women’s Agenda
“Senegal’s women voters could make a miracle happen in presidential election”: Al Jazeera
“Glass Ceiling. Why grassroots women leaders struggle to reach Lok Sabha”: The Hindu Businessline
“Inspiring inclusion: Afro-feminist approaches for women's political participation”: International IDEA
Community Watch
A quick round-up from the community working at the intersection of gender x politics
The Centre for Gender and Politics (CGAP) has released a Gender Observation Guide for the upcoming Indian elections. You can access it here.
Also from India, the Femme First Foundation has released a Gender Manifesto ahead of the parliamentary polls urging political parties to adopt it in their own agendas. Read it here.
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Disclaimer: #WomenLead is a non-partisan newsletter produced in a personal capacity, and does not reflect any institutional affiliation/opinion. In case of any questions, please drop in a message at womenlead.project@gmail.com.