COLOMBO, Sept 11 (Askume) – None of the 38 candidates in Sri Lanka’s presidential election this month is a woman, a stark contrast to the Indian Ocean island where more than half the electorate and workforce are women.
Long before more familiar figures such as Britain’s Margaret Thatcher or India’s Indira Gandhi, Sri Lanka had the world’s first female prime minister, electing Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960, whose daughter took over the post 30 years later.
Of the more than 17 million Sri Lankans who voted on September 21 to elect a new president, 52% are women. These voters hope thatThis will promote political stability and economic growth as the country grapples with its worst financial crisis in more than seven decades .
But since universal suffrage was introduced in Sri Lanka in 1931, the proportion of women in parliament has never exceeded the 7% threshold. Today, they make up only 5.3% of the 225-member body and have historically held only a handful of cabinet positions.
However, setting a 25% quota among MPs as in 2016 is not the only answer, said Congress member Harini Amarasuriya. She called for broader efforts to bring more women into political life.
“The quota system is just one method,” Amarasuriya said. “It may result in changes in numbers, but to bring about meaningful change, efforts must be made to actively involve women in politics and place them in leadership roles.”
Irrigation Minister Pavithra Devi Wanniarachchi is the only woman among the 16 members of the current Cabinet, and only two of the nearly thirty deputy ministers are women.
Nimalka Fernando of the Institute for Women in Politics, which trains women to participate effectively in decision-making, said the patriarchal structure of Sri Lanka’s political parties was responsible for the sparse representation.
“The biggest hurdle is that men do not see politics as a field where women should participate equally,” said Fernando, whose organisation has trained nearly 3,000 women over the past 12 years.
“We have equal share in the House, but politics happens outside the House,” she said. “Women run, protest…but when it comes to decision-making, there are obstacles.”
‘It’s very difficult for women’
Samudra Jayalath, 61, distributed campaign leaflets for opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, the leading candidate in the election, hoping his political career would take off after winning the 2012 municipal election.
Jayarat, who has never held any post at the national level despite working in various political parties for nearly four decades, said: “It is difficult for women to find a place in politics unless they come from a political family.” Women are ascending the throne on tickets.
She dispatched party workers to hand out the distinctive green caps of Premadasa’s Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party in her close-knit, middle-class Colombo neighbourhood, where she knew most of the about 1,250 families by family name.
Premadasa’s opponents include President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took charge of the country after the financial crisis, and Marxist legislator Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
Of the three main contenders, only Wickremesinghe has outlined specific efforts to boost women’s representation in politics and business. Premadasa wants to reform maternity laws and develop a national daycare policy.
Dissanayake’s commitments included promoting women’s participation in management, regulating private insurance schemes, and modernizing labor laws.
Despite the 2016 quotas, female representation in Sri Lanka’s grassroots governance has never exceeded 23%.
A similar quota aimed at increasing its provincial representation above the current 5 per cent has been stalled in Parliament for more than two years.
This will be Jayarat’s last election before he hands over the organiser’s responsibility to a male colleague after failing to find a female successor.
“You have to be born with a talent for politics,” he said. “The system will not change unless we force it to change.”
