Elections
As Bangladesh awaits the result of the 2026 national parliamentary election, one statistic should give us pause. Only 78 women are contesting the election — just under 4% of nearly 2,000 candidates. It is being described as a "record number".
Even in the 2024 national election, 128 women (4.71%) contested among 2,713 total candidates. In 2019, 22 women were elected to general seats. This backsliding says more about how political power is structured in Bangladesh than about women's political capacity.
Recently, at a day-long national conference titled Rupture, Reform, and Reimagining Democracy: Navigating the Agony of Transition, organised by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) at BRAC University to reflect on Bangladesh's political transition, a speaker jokingly asked: "Is Bangladesh ready for a male prime minister?"
A global wave of Gen Z-led protests have called for a fundamental restructuring of government and politics. Upcoming elections in Bangladesh and Nepal could offer young voters an opportunity for meaningful reform
Citizens in Bangladesh and Nepal head to the polls on February 12 and March 5, respectively, for the first general elections since youth-led uprisings toppled both countries’ governments. The two countries are seeking to rebuild their government institutions, but the elections could reflect the political headwinds in the region. Despite similar reform sentiments appearing in Japan and Thailand over the past few years, voters in those recent elections chose to back pro-establishment, conservative parties.
In August 2024, students in Bangladesh protested job quotas favoring those with ties to the previous political party in power, while in September 2025, protests against nepotism erupted in Nepal after social media posts by the children of political elites appeared to flaunt lavish lifestyles.
The two movements have had cascading effects. Since 2024, Bangladesh has been governed by an interim administration after protests led to the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India. In Nepal, parliament was set ablaze during the 2025 protests, prompting the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli. Nepal’s so-called Gen Z protest helped spark a wave of youth-led movements under the banner of Generation Z—those born between 1997 and 2012.
Read More here.
The Liberal Democratic Party’s lopsided victory was not the only record set in the Feb. 8 Lower House election.
A total of 313 women ran as candidates, accounting for 24.4 percent of the 1,284 contenders and surpassing the previous high of 23.4 percent.
Sixty-eight women were elected on Feb. 8, representing 14.6 percent of all winners. Twenty-eight of the female candidates won in single-seat districts and 40 gained seats through proportional representation.
Only the 2024 Lower House election had more female winners, at 73.
By party, the LDP endorsed the most successful female candidates, with 39, followed by eight each with the Centrist Reform Alliance (Chudo), the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) and Sanseito.
Read More here.
As the clock hit midnight, the women held their flame torches aloft and marched into the Dhaka night. “The people have given their blood, now we want equality,” they shouted above the roar of the traffic.
For many in Bangladesh, the past few weeks have been a cause for jubilation. The first free and fair elections in 17 years have been promised for Thursday, after the toppling of the regime of Sheikh Hasina in a bloody student-led uprising in August 2024 in which more than 1,000 people died.
Opposition figures long persecuted and jailed are now running as candidates, freely holding rallies for the first time in years. The former prime minister is languishing in exile in India and facing a death sentence for crimes against humanity in Bangladesh, and her Awami League party is banned from contesting the election.
Yet for swathes of women in the country, including those who were at the forefront of the revolution, the hope of the election has become tinged with disappointment and fear, amid a resurgence of regressive Islamist politics that it is feared will impinge upon women’s rights and a dearth of female candidates in the running.
Read More here.
More than 300 participants at a public dialogue highlight barriers to women's political participation and sign petitions demanding equal representation in decision-making roles.
Women leaders, activists and youth representative have demanded and end to the systemic exclusion of women from politics in Nepal. Speaking at a public dialogue 'Excluded by Design: Women, Politics and Ethical Failure' they said the political mindset remains the same even after the Gen Z movement.
The Dialogue also highlighted that women make up 52 per cent of Nepal's population only 396 of the 3,486 candidate in the upcoming House of Representatives elections are women. Speakers emphasized that this indicates not a failure on the part of women, but of the system.RT
Read more here.
During Nigeria’s election cycles, a particular kind of misinformation circulates alongside the usual false claims about candidates and voting procedures. These are narratives that target women specifically—fabricated scandals, manipulated images, and rumours designed to discredit female politicians and discourage women’s civic participation.
This gendered disinformation operates daily across Nigerian social media and WhatsApp groups, often going unchallenged because the tools to counter it rarely reach the women most affected.
On Friday, Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative launched MyAIFactChecker, a WhatsApp chatbot that allows users to verify information in English, Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo. What distinguishes this tool from other fact-checking initiatives is not just its technology but its design philosophy: inclusion was treated as foundational rather than optional.
“Technology is only inclusive if inclusion is intentional,” said Sanni Alausa Issa, Communications Director of Brain Builders, at the launch event.
In Chile, the last municipal elections were held on the 15th and 16th of May of 2021. In these elections, authorities responsible for local administration were elected, including mayors of 345 municipalities that administer 346 communes, the smallest administrative division in the country, and 13 regional governors. This was the first-time in Chile’s history that governors were democratically elected given they were previously always designated by the President of the Republic.
The next municipal and regional elections are set to take place on the 26th and 27th of October 2024.
International Conventions
Chile is signatory of the main international instruments on gender equality and women’s empowerment, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), that upholds women’s right to participate in public life, and the Beijing Platform for Action adopted in 1995, which calls for removing all barriers to equal participation.
The CEDAW Convention was signed and ratified in 1980 and 1989, and the CEDAW Optional Protocol in 1999 and 2020 respectively.
National Legislation
Political participation
Gender quotas to promote women’s representation at local levels have not been legislated in Chile. Other temporary special measures to address youth and indigenous peoples underrepresentation in local decision-making have also not been legislated to date.
However, a draft law (Bulletin No. 11994-34) establishing gender quotas for regional governors and local councillors, that establishes a maximum representation of 60 per cent for either sex in candidate lists is currently in the second stage of constitutional review in the Senate.[1]
Chile also introduced parliamentary gender quotas in the the 2015–2016 electoral reforms establishing at least 40 per cent of candidates standing for Parliament must be women. This temporary measure established under Act No. 20.840 is set to last until the parliamentary elections of 2029. It also provides that at least 10 per cent of state funding contributed to each political party must be used to promote the political participation of women.
Chile is also the first country in the world to carry out a constitutional electoral process with a gender parity mechanism for both lists of candidates and election results, as provided in 2020 by Act No. 21.216 on constitutional reform. As a result, the body currently has a membership of 77 women and 78 men. In addition, in 2020 the inclusion of 17 seats reserved for representatives of indigenous peoples was approved, 9 of which are occupied by women.[2]
Read here the full article published by GWL Voices on 24 October 2024.
Image by GWL Voices
For decades, a key goal of activists and policymakers has been involving women in politics. Achieving gender parity in the political realm – that is, seeing more women running for and winning political office – is not merely a rhetorical goal. In fact, research has shown that women bring unique perspectives and focuses to lawmaking. A seminal study by Raghabendra Chattopadhyay and Esther Duflo showed that when women are given a seat at the table, they implement policies more relevant to the needs of women generally.
Many countries have implemented targeted electoral laws, known as “gender quotas,” as part of an effort to increase women’s political participation. These laws vary in the size of the quota, whether the quotas are legally enforced, at what stage of the election process they are enforced, which branch of government they are applied to (legislative, executive, judicial) and what level of government they are applied to (local, regional, federal). India reserves a minority of districts for women to lead, while in France, it is mandated in municipal elections that half of the candidates each party nominates must be women. Designing each system requires trade-offs: while a reserved seat system like India’s guarantees that at least some women will be elected, such strict systems could face legal opposition in their implementation.
Read here the full article published by Boston University Global Development Policy Center on 1 October 2024.
Image by Boston University Global Development Policy Center
Introduction
Women, and women of color in particular, face numerous challenges when running for political office in the U.S. These include attacks they are subject to in various online spaces that, like their peers, they must use to campaign and promote their work. These attacks often aim to undermine and prevent women’s participation in politics. Previous research by CDT found that women of color Congressional candidates in the 2020 U.S. election were more likely to be subjected to violent and sexist abuse, and mis- and disinformation on X/Twitter compared to other candidates. These forms of abuse might contribute to the underrepresentation of women of color in politics, and may also undermine the effectiveness of the US democratic system in reflecting the interest and priorities of all voters in policy-making.
In this research brief, we turn to the 2024 U.S. elections to examine the nature of offensive speech and hate speech that candidates running for Congress are subject to on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), which remains an important forum for political candidates. More specifically, we compare the levels of offensive speech and hate speech that different groups of Congressional candidates are targeted with based on race and gender, with a particular emphasis on women of color. We also examine these factors for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as a woman of color and presidential candidate.
Read here the full report published by Center for Democracy & Technology on 2 October 2024.
Image credits: Center for Democracy & Technology
2. Global Trends
2.3. Rights
2.3.4. Gender Equality
The Gender Equality subfactor measures power distribution by gender and female participation in civil society organizations, the ratio of female-to-male mean years of schooling and the proportion of lower-chamber legislators who are female. It also measures exclusion by gender, women’s empowerment and women’s political and economic rights.
While Gender Equality has not made notable improvements globally since 2018 (eight countries saw advances, and five saw declines), there have been important markers of progress. These include the passage of a bill to implement a gender quota for the lower house of parliament and state assemblies in India and a landmark bill that would guarantee extra seats for women in provincial assemblies in the Solomon Islands (Brechenmacher 2023; RNZ 2024; Solomon Islands Government 2024).
Mexico is also a noteworthy case, as it sets a high standard in terms of the range of mechanisms it has in place to ensure women’s political participation. In 2024 voters chose Claudia Sheinbaum to be Mexico’s first woman president. Additionally, at the time of the writing of this report, the heads of the Supreme Court and the Electoral Tribunal were both women, as were the presidents of the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies and the National Electoral Institute (INE). Building on previous amendments that had gradually introduced gender parity, a groundbreaking 2019 constitutional reform established ‘parity in everything’ as a permanent principle in all branches of government to guarantee women’s access to politics, government and the administration of justice (Ravel 2024; Piscopo and Vázquez Correa 2023).
Although high levels of violence, particularly against women, have been an issue in this election year (INEGI 2022; Piscopo and Vázquez Correa 2023; Harrison-Cripps 2024; Calderón 2024), strong legislation and policies have facilitated the monitoring and sanctioning of gender-based political violence, including through a National Registry of Sanctioned Persons for Violence against Women in Politics and the INE’s collaboration with platforms regarding digital-based political violence (INE 2024; Meta 2024).
Read here the full report published by International IDEA on 17 September 2024.
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, The Carter Center, the National Democratic Institute, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and the Kofi Annan Foundation announced today the release of Model Commitments for Advancing Genuine and Credible Elections.
With democratic elections and institutions facing growing threats globally, it is critical to have actionable commitments that help improve, defend, and expand election integrity. The Model Commitments provides a resource with specific steps government leaders and democracy advocates can take to help strengthen democracy and elections, including ways to expand dialogue on key electoral issues. The Model Commitments are intended to benefit everyone involved in electoral processes and systems, including voters, candidates, election officials, election observers, and others.
The Model Commitments outline five sets of electoral integrity commitments — to protect Genuine Elections, Legal Framework, Election Administration, Electoral Accountability, and Information Integrity.
They draw on existing international norms, standards, and best practices for democratic elections, including most that are catalogued in the Carter Center’s Election Obligations and Standards Database and the Election Obligations and Standards Handbook.
Democratic electoral processes face constant pressures and changing circumstances in countries around the world. To help build public trust in election integrity and democratic governance, the Model Commitments are designed to reflect changing contexts and efforts to strengthen democracy in the face of new and evolving challenges.
This resource lays out ways for governments to affirm efforts to implement these commitments or to pledge an intention to apply them in a timely manner through appropriate electoral reform measures.
The Model Commitments for Advancing Genuine and Credible Elections is supported by like-minded organizations that share a commitment to the principles embodied in the Model Commitments. The organizations listed below have indicated their support for the Model Commitments. Additional supporting organizations will be added annually and announced around each International Day of Democracy.
·Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL)
·Election Watch EU
·Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA)
·European Partnership for Democracy (EPD)
·European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE)
·Experts in Democracy, Governance, and Elections (EDGE)
·Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD)
·Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD)
Read here the full Models Commitments published by the NDI on 15 September 2024.
In Congress this term, 25% of senators and 28% of representatives are women, near record highs for both houses, but far below equal representation with men. As Kamala Harris runs for president, will being a woman cost her votes?
To learn more about the role of gender in American politics, we spoke with Brian Schaffner, a political science professor and Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies. He is also a principal investigator of the Cooperative Election Study, the largest academic survey focused on U.S. elections, and is writing a book about how political polarization is defined by social divisions.
How have attitudes toward electing women changed in America in the last 30 years?
People now are much more open to electing women to all levels of office, including to president, although obviously we haven’t seen a woman president yet. The number of women in Congress, for example, has hit historic highs, even though it’s well under parity with men. There are also a lot of women governors throughout the country.
Political science research shows that when women run for office, they are at least as successful as men are. The big problem is not that voters won’t vote for a woman for political office now; it’s that women don’t run as often as men do.
Why don’t women run for office as much as men?
This is not necessarily my area of expertise, but there’s a lot of research that focuses on this. It shows a range of factors, from how women and men are raised differently to the types of things people have to do to run for office, like raising money—having to put yourself out there.
Also, until recently, women weren’t recruited as much as men to run for office. The parties would go out and try to recruit men, because they were the people who were in their networks.
Read here the full article published by the Tufts University on 4 September 2024.
Image credits: Tufts University