2017 Elections Monitoring

Our aim with the monitoring of elections and political participation of women in Africa is to provide a deeper analysis, in the form of briefing papers that will incorporate primary sources: the views and voices of parties and voters on the ground. Through a table with statistical data, we will be specifically looking at the number of women (i) registered to vote, (ii) running as candidates, (iii) who are elected following the elections. Our analysis will also include an article on the gender specificities of the country where the election is taking place. We will be looking at the situation of women prior to the elections as well as the way that the elections impact the lives of women.

While the early 20th century saw queens ruling various African countries, notably Ethiopia and Swaziland, the early 1990s saw women appearing on the African political scene, notably in Liberia, Burundi and Rwanda with female presidents and prime ministers. We now hope that the second decade of this millennium will see the rise of true female political participation sweep through Africa, with an increased number of women taking part in the polls, being elected as candidates and playing a key role in shaping their own country’s future.

Objectives:

The  objective is to  provide an easy to use tool to follow the role of women in elections across Africa by covering the position of female candidates before and after the elections have taken place.The accessibility of current and reliable data on women’s political participation, access to leadership is even more difficult to find and compile. Without this information it is difficult to construct an objective view, analyze and interpret the position of women with regards to political participation. By providing this data in an accessible, easy to read framework (ie table) MEWC hopes to provide an information gateway to researchers, policy makers, students other women’s organizations and local voters...

Introduction

In 1991, Somaliland unilaterally declared independence from Somalia. Although no other country has officially recognized Somaliland’s independence, the country enjoys peace and stability in this violent regional context. Somaliland has a government elected by the people it represents with its own public and foreign policy. The country has a long history of peaceful elections and executive turnover.

Introduction

In 2017, a presidential election took place in Liberia in order to replace President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. In 2006, Ms Johnson-Sirleaf became the first elected female Head of State in Africa. She stayed in power until 2017 when she completed her second and final term.

Rwanda held its Presidential elections on 4th August 2017 and Paul Kagame won the elections for a third consecutive term.

Parliamentary elections in Kenya took place on the 8th of August 2017.

The parliamentary elections were held in Algeria on 4 May 2017.

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