women's participation

MORE than fifty years after independence, Tanzania is embarking on a Constitutional Review process that will transform the way its people relate and live with each other and also the way the country is governed.

It is also an opportunity for the most discriminated and oppressed segment to spearhead the movement of 'social justice' and 'equality'; an opportunity to right the wrongs of the current state of affairs and to 'raise' the flags of Equality and Equal Rights high.

President Cristina Fernandez Victory Front managed to remain as the leading political force nationwide on Sunday’s congressional primaries but her opponents emerged exceptionally strong in the all-important province of Buenos Aires and the other main districts of the country, to the extent that some political analysts anticipate the beginning of the end of the ten years of Kirchnerism.

The Committee on Political Participation of Women (CPPW) urged political parties not to take advantage of the role of women in the 2014 election by using them as a tool to gain political mileage. The CPPW said that the need for sincerity in working to address issues of female political participation as despite the Afghan government's rhetoric about improving Afghan women's rights, no significant progress has been made.

Hajiya Hafsat Baba is one of the major personalities in the North who have been speaking in support of women and child development in the region and Nigeria in general. The National Women Leader of the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and Coordinator, Global Initiative for Women and Children, a non-governmental organisation, speaks  with HASSAN IBRAHIM on the challenges facing women and how such could be resolved.

Malians are still waiting for the government to announce full provisional results from Sunday's presidential poll. The presidency says the announcement has been delayed until Friday, the day by law when the results are due.

However, several candidates have already denounced partial results released earlier this week as fraudulent. Authorities said those partial results indicate a likely first-round victory for former prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita...

In Ireland, the rate of female participation in politics is one of the lowest in Europe

Just 15 per cent of Dail members are women, which ranks 5th in Europe, according to European Parliament figures collected after the general election in 2011. 

Last year, the department of the environment introduced legislation under the Electoral Act 1997 stipulating that all political parties provide a minimum of 30 per cent female candidates at the next general election or risk losing 50 per cent of their state funding.

With constitutional quotas for interest group seats in their favour and all political parties legally bound to respect women's quota of at least 30 per cent of their parliamentary nominees, women may retain or even widen their majority in the Chamber of Deputies after the upcoming September elections.