Better gender balance needed in Parliament

IT IS likely that there will be more women in the new Parliament than in the last. The best-case scenario is for an increase of more than one and a quarter over the 11 females who sat in the outgoing Parliament.

But whatever the gender configuration of the House after the September 3 general election, women will still be underrepresented in the legislature, compared to their nearly 51 per cent share of Jamaica’s population.

With 17.5 of the elected members of the outgoing Parliament being female, Jamaica, based on United Nations data up to January of this year, ranked 121st of 189 among countries and territories rated for their ratio of female MPs. In fact, 226 countries were ranked, but several countries tied for positions. Rwanda, with 61 per cent, had the world’s highest proportion of female legislators, followed by Cuba, with 53.2 per cent. Among Jamaica’s Caribbean Community (CARICOM) partners, Grenada, with 46.7 per cent, was eighth in the global rankings, while Guyana, with 34.8 per cent, was 38th. Guyana’s data, however, might have changed after its recent election under a complex proportional representation system.

The gender make-up of Jamaica’s Parliament, and where women stand in the apportionment of power, generally, has long been talked about. It appears, however, to have fallen off the national agenda in recent times. The conversation should be resumed and the island’s political parties forced to act on the matter. Women should insist on it.

RECORD NUMBERS

To be fair, with 30 women seeking to enter the next Parliament, female candidates will be at a record high in this election, up a quarter on the 24 females – including two independents – who sought seats in 2016. This time, the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), in opposition at the last election, has increased its female candidates by 80 per cent – from 10 to 18. Yet, women account for only 28.5 per cent of its candidates.

Nonetheless, the JLP is doing better than the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) with regard to the gender balance of its candidates. Twelve, or 19 per cent, of the PNP’s candidates are women, the same ratio as last time. Looked at another way, of the 126 candidates who will face the electorate on behalf of the JLP or the PNP, less than a quarter – 23.8 per cent – will be women.

It is more than reasonable conjecture, given the post-Independence voting patterns in Jamaican elections, that only candidates representing the two big parties will win seats. On that premise, and the fact that in five constituencies, women will face each other, there could be 25 females in the House, accounting for 39.6 per cent of its membership. That, possibly, could have been 46.7 per cent, were there no female-versus-female contests.

The best response to this gender imbalance, in the legislature and at the pinnacle of power, will be direct action by political parties. They have to recruit female candidates and make it easier for them to participate in politics, including being effective constituency representatives. Indeed, one of the candidates in this election, the PNP’s Imani Duncan-Price, has, in the past, made the case for genderneutral quotas in elections, of which she has, apparently, so far, been unable to convince her party. That is despite Portia Simpson Miller, the former PNP president and, thus far, Jamaica’s only female prime minister, having lamented the paucity of women at the top tier of politics, and other endeavours, despite their strong presence in the middle.

BREAK THROUGH BARRIERS

At a function six years ago to mark her 40th anniversary in politics, Mrs Simpson Miller, who, at the time, was still the prime minister, remarked: “We cannot sit back and feel comfortable because a few women have been able to break through the barriers and create history.”

That theme was addressed by an Organization of American States mission that observed the 2016 election. Despite a growing number of Jamaican women in decision-making positions, as well as a formidable presence in election campaigns, they continued, the group said, “to be under-represented in actual nominations for the electoral contest and in their election to the House of Representatives”.

This newspaper shares that concern. We agree with Mrs Duncan-Price on the need for gender-neutral quotas for election candidates. This should be an issue for debate during the current campaign. Further, parties should commit that for the next election cycle, at least one-third of their candidates will, respectively, be male or female.

A Parliament that better reflects the gender balance of the society is more likely to be better, and more nuanced, at appreciating, and acting on, the concerns of all citizens and to make decisions to deal with them. Moreover, it just doesn’t make sense that more than half of citizens are grossly under-represented at the symbolic heart of power.