Women on top in DR Congo and Malta; Georgia retreats from its equality promise, and more: All you need to know about women in politics from April
#WomenLead (Issue 149): Your monthly round-up on women in politics
Hello, and welcome to the April edition of #WomenLead!
Around the world, several countries have adopted quotas for women in various forms in the past few decades. Where these quotas have been designed thoughtfully and implemented in true spirit, women’s representation has seen marked improvement. While over the years, more and more countries are introducing such measures, there are also cases of some countries that are going the opposite way. In April, Georgia seems to have joined the club. We bring you more on that (and a lot many more updates) in this edition of #WomenLead. Hope you will find reading it worth your time.
And in case you had missed last month’s edition, you can read it here.
Election Watch
Tracking women among candidates and winners
🇲🇻 MALDIVES: Three women were elected to the Maldives’ Parliament in an election held in April, along with 90 men. That’s just 3.2 percent of all MPs. This is marginally lower than the previous election when the share of women elected was 4.6 percent.
🇸🇧 SOLOMON ISLANDS: Three women were also elected to the Parliament of Solomon Islands in April, up from two in the outgoing legislature. Additionally, five women were also elected at the provincial level, ABC News has reported.
🇬🇧 UNITED KINGDOM: Local elections were held in the UK on May 2. Only 34 percent of candidates contesting these were women, data compiled by Fawcett Society and Democracy Club shows. Further, only 27 percent of the candidates who contested the mayoral polls were women.
🇯🇵 JAPAN: In a rare occurrence in the political sphere of Japan, four women contested from the Tokyo 15th district in a by-election held earlier this month. Natsumi Sakai, a candidate of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, won the polls to become a member of the Parliament. Read more about her and the polls in The Japan Times here.
🇮🇳 INDIA: Parliamentary elections are currently underway in India. Two of the seven phases have been completed. Even as all parties go all out to attract women’s vote, women’s representation among candidates continues to remain marginal. In the first two phases, women comprised only 8 percent of the candidates in these phases. For the upcoming third and fourth phases, this share stands at 9 and 10 percent only, as per data compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms. (Women comprise just 14.7 percent of the current Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament).
Leaders
Updates about women leading countries, states and movements
Judith Suminwa Tuluka has been appointed Democratic Republic of Congo’s Prime Minister. She is the first woman to hold the position in the country.
In Malta, Myriam Spiteri Debono has become the country’s 11th President. Read more about her here.
Slightly late to this very important update – Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni is seeking 100,000 euros as damages from the two men accused of uploading deepfake videos of hers on an American porn site. The incident had come to light in 2020 when the Italian postal police were able to trace back the videos to a father-son duo. Meloni will appear in court in July to testify as part of the trial.
Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni (Image via social media platform X/@GiorgiaMeloni) Deepfake images and videos are synthetic media where a person in an image or video is manipulated in a way that they look extremely similar to another person. While these may have some positive use cases, deepfakes are getting increasingly notorious for their use in spreading misinformation.
In March, the Associated Press reported that Meloni will be seeking the money in symbolic damages. She intends to eventually donate the same to an Interior Ministry fund for women victims of domestic violence. Read more here.
On-the-job Updates
Spotlighting women’s experiences in political office
Gisela Gaytan, a mayoral candidate in Mexico’s Celaya city, was shot dead ahead of a rally on April 1. In a tragic irony, Gaytan had just presented her plans for improving security in the city at a press conference before the rally. At least 22 mayoral candidates have been murdered in Mexico since September 2023, The Guardian has reported.
In India, a sitting MP is at the centre of some horrific allegations of sexual assault and abuse. Prajwal Revanna, the MP for Hassan who is contesting again, is under investigation for allegedly sexually abusing, assaulting and raping mutiple women and recording this abuse on his phone, and then using the recordings to harass and abuse the women. The incident came to light after some of the videos of the assault (which he claims are morphed) began doing the rounds in his constituency.
After an investigation was set up into the videos, a former member of a local body (the zila parishad) registered another complaint against Revanna. As per her complaint, the woman was sexually assaulted by Revanna multiple times over three years. It started when she had visited his MP quarters in 2021 to secure seats for some girls at a government-run hostel. While there, Revanna made her wait, and when she was the only one remaining, he asked her to meet him in a room, where he assaulted her. He recorded the video and threatened to leak it if she complained to anyone.
Revanna fled India as the allegations were coming to light, and is reportedly in Germany at the moment. He is the son of H. D. Revanna, a legislator and state minister himself, and the grandson of India’s former Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda.
Pam Damoff, a three-time Member of Parliament in Canada, has said that she would not seek re-election and would quit politics, Toronto Star reported. Damoff attributed her decision to the increasingly toxic and hyper-partisan nature of politics. She said that the toxic drive for attention on social media and the spread of misinformation and lies was eroding public discourse.
“The threats and misogyny I have experienced as a member of Parliament are such that I often fear going out in public, and that is not a sustainable or healthy way to live. Quite simply, politics is no longer for me and so it is time for me to turn the page on this chapter.”
Policy Watch
Because policy shifts matter
Georgia will no longer have a gender quota requirement for electoral lists. In April, the country’s Parliament approved a bill that provides for the annulment of the quota – thus far, political parties were mandated to ensure that at least a fourth of candidates on party lists be women.
The ruling party, Georgian Dream, supported the bill moved by the opposition Girchi party. In exchange, the opposition assured support for the ruling party’s candidate to be the Chair of the Central Election Commission, Civil Georgia reported. (What just is happening, by the way?!)
The decision has been criticised by human rights and gender equality advocates. In a statement, The United Nations office expressed its concerns about the use of the “accelerated procedure to abolish mandatory electoral gender quotas”, adding that the cancellation of the electoral quotas was “a step backwards in achieving gender equality”, InterPressNews reported.
Reading List
The more one learns, there’s only more to learn
“We shouldn’t have to beg or negotiate for women rights: Isata Mahoi, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs”: United Nations Africa Renewal
“A woman in politics – a heroine or “the one who neglected her home, husband, and children for her career”?”: UNDP
“More people will vote in 2024 than ever before … but where are the female candidates?”: The Guardian
“‘The political system is misfiring’: Why young women don’t see themselves becoming politicians”: Women’s Agenda
“Empowering women in politics: Building leadership for gender equality in Uzbekistan”: UNDP
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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.