Question over whether we will see more female candidates in the Myanmar election

Question over whether we will see more female candidates in the Myanmar election
Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi (C) shakes hands with ethnic women after her trip to Shan State at the Hehoe airport on February 13, 2020. Photo: Thet Aung/AFP

Can We See more Women as Candidates in the Forthcoming Elections? 

Past Evidences show the way

As Myanmar citizens are gearing up for the general elections to decide their representatives for the union and state/regional parliaments, all eyes are on the activities of various political parties, their processes of candidate selection and strategies to attract voters.

Democratic transition of power and elections of 2015 have proven to the international community that Myanmar’s electoral democracy is credible and people have trust in it.  

However from a gender justice point of view only about 10 per cent of parliamentary seats are occupied by women in Myanmar.  In fact women’s political participation has been an issue of concern in many South Asia and South-East Asian countries, though ironically, women have occupied highest leadership positions in many countries, including in Myanmar with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi being an unassailable leader.

A challenge that many CSOs and women’s rights activists in Myanmar pose to political parties and democratic system is to ensure and proactively seek more women as candidates contesting for seats at union and state/regional level parliaments.  Why there are few women coming forward? What are the constraining factors? What can be done to improve the situation? These are the questions to ponder over. An interesting study on women’s participation in politics tried to answer these. Researchers from IDRC-EMReF Gender Equality Project studied the question - ‘to what extent are opportunities different for men and women to become MPs in Myanmar and why? The study, based on the interviews with 72 leaders (including MPs and contested candidates) belonging to nine political parties, focused on both supply and demand side of political participation of women.  It studied the motivations of women to be part of political party system as well as their constraints,  leadership and decision making within parties and how all these affect women’s leadership.

A critical reflection on these findings is timely as the political parties are gearing up for candidate selection with the announcement of date for 2020 elections, and it may be a right opportunity for CSOs and women’s rights activists to advocate for more substantive representation of women as candidates from all political parties in the forthcoming elections. Can the commitments be translated into actions is a big open question.

Issues of gender equality in Myanmar are challenging with women having about 52% of labour force participation compared to 80% of men in the labour market. Socio cultural factors explain a lot about gender disparities, though women form higher proportion in terms of higher education achievement.  The same is the case with political representation.  Taking the 2015 elections as base, the study identified various features in relation to womens’ political participation ( particularly in elections) among political parties.  The 2015 elections resulted in women becoming 10.5% of MPs in the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (lower house). Across all of the State/Region parliaments women became 9.7% of MPs. There is also considerable variation between States/Regions in terms of women MPs – for example, in Mon State women are nearly 20% of MPs, but in Chin, Kayah and Rakhine States there are no women MPs at all.  As candidates, political parties nominated women in the range of 4% to 19% of total candidates (major parties NLD and USDP have nominated 14% and 6% respectively), and the success rate ranged from 0% to 25%. All these numbers point towards relatively marginal representation of women in politics. Why is this situation?

Motivation for women for joining in political parties appear to be that of having political family background.  Political dynasties has been the case in much of the South Asia and South East Asian political culture.  For many interviewed women party members, the role of father is found to play a key motivating factor for their participation in politics. For many candidates, women were more likely than men to have a family member involved in politics. “ For both men and women, previous experience in political activities play a key role. Additionally, those with a background in social or religious groups, or as teachers are more likely to join public life, while those from ethnic-based parties with experience in community/church based groups are more likely to join politics”.

The process of selection of candidates by the parties is a critical aspect which determines the final tally of how many women are contesting from any political party.  This would necessitate understanding of working of political parties. Evidences point out that women are grossly under represented in major political parties as members of the central committees or central executive committee or any such decision making bodies.  This itself reflects that it would be difficult for women to seek representation within the party forums. Inner party democracy is also critical for selection of candidates for contesting elections. Few parties adhere to inner party democracy in terms of selection of candidates from below; however final decision making often rests with the top leadership.   What has been the criteria for selection of candidates? Many respondents interviewed for the study (both men and women)  “ prefer candidates with a high level of education. Other traits, in descending order of preference include: being young; ethnicity; popularity/ respectability; occupational background; political background/experience. Only a small number (of respondents) highlighted gender as a preferred trait”. This points out that a conscious decision of selecting woman candidate may not be an option exercised by the decision making bodies of the political parties.

There are challenges that women face even when they are identified as candidates for standing in elections.  Interviews with the women candidates (winners and losers) point out that support from male members of the family, costs, personal security, and threats and harassment faced during the campaign trail are some of the factors that inhibit them from engaging in electoral process.   Social media

How can women participation be improved? What are the ways forward?  The study point out that  building party organisation and establishing clear rules for enhanced participation of women is important. Diversification of pool of potential candidates and encouraging them through a bottom up approach would be helpful.  It may be worthwhile to explore establishing a voluntary quota system or target system of 30% women in leadership positions within political parties to encourage women candidates. Similarly, systematic training and capacity building for women members of the party and ensuring safety and security are also important recommendations from the study.

One hopes that political parties heed the voices of women across the country and take urgent steps in ensuring more women come to electoral fray and taste success as people’s representatives.