Ahead of Elections, Sri Lanka Attempts Saving 30 Percent Seats For Women

In a potential lobby preceeding Sri Lanka's parliamentary elections, the country's ministry of Women's Affairs called upon all the  political parties who are contesting the ballots to fix their women representation ratio and nominate at least 30 percent female candidates.

Swarna Sumanasekera, the chairman of the National Committee on Women which is operated by the ministry, has admitted to having urged political parties to secure one-third seats for women at the party level itself, to hopefully see more women catapulted to hold national office.

"We want well educated women who can contribute to the social and national development of the country's economy to be nominated and elected into the new parliament," Sumanasekera said to the Xinhua news agency.

At 5.8 percent, Sri Lanka houses the most feeble numbers of women's representation in the apex political body amongst all South Asian countries. Thus, in a bid to bring more women and minority contenders to the fore, their government is also contemplating raising the number of total seats to be contested.

With Rwanda, Iceland and Finland having the best figures globally- all well over 50 percent representation - the Indian parliamentary elections in 2013 also saw 10.9 women being elected into office. In that regard, Sri Lanka ranks 140 out of 153 countries in the world with respect to women in politics.

Image credits: Thevotingnews.com

Source: The Business Standard