Election Disinformation, Online Hate & Women’s Political Representation
Election Disinformation, Online Hate & Women’s Political Representation
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113 seats or more for women will make Sri Lankan democracy inclusive
‘Sri Lanka requires policies to increase women’s representation in Parliament: Commissioner General of Elections
To increase women’s political representation at the parliamentary level, 51 % of the country’s population, several measures should be taken including the introduction of new policies, said Saman Sri Ratnayake, the Commissioner General of Elections.
He made these remarks at the ‘Digital Dictatorship, Online Hate, and Women’s Political Representation’ event hosted by the Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIR) on Wednesday (30) at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute (SLFI).
“Women are essential in decision-making spaces,” he said.
He also said that this problem -- where women politicians played a minimal role in the decision-making of political parties -- was a common one.
“We recently mandated that parties should ensure that a woman is represented in their top structure – that is either as chairperson, treasurer, or secretary. However, some political parties have instead invented a position called ‘national organiser - women’ and have appointed a woman. What we aimed for isn’t being achieved. This status quo needs to change, starting from party members themselves, but in our country, there are no party members, just some voters during the election time. The decision makers who run some parties can fit into a three-wheeler,” said Ratnayake.
Noting that there is less space in any field for women to come forward, he said the existing cultural barriers exacerbated the issue: “Even female election officers face these barriers due to odd, busy working hours.”
However, this translates to losing their capacity and insights in policymaking and no country should miss out on the knowledge and expertise of their female population, said Ratnayake.
The event saw the launch of two CIR publications which compiled 13 stories by CIR journalist fellows – nine on electoral integrity and four on digital dictatorship,
විමර්ශනාත්මක වාර්තාකරණ මධ්යස්ථානය විසින් සංවිධානය කරනු ලබන දේශපාලනය තුළ කාන්තා නියෝජනය, දුස්තොරතුරු හා වෛරී ප්රකාශන පිළිබඳ සාකච්ඡා මාලාවේ පළමුවැන්න SHE Digital සමඟ සිදුකෙරුණු අතර ඒ සඳහා ප්රථමයෙන්ම සිය අදහස් දැක්වූයේ ස්ත්රී පුරුෂ සමාජභාවය සහ මැතිවරණ ක්රියාකාරී කණ්ඩායමේ කැඳවුම්කාරිනිය වන කනකා අබේගුණවර්ධනයි.
#disinformation #hatespeech #election #women
With the Presidential Election due to be held in few days, we look back at a series of discussions we conducted earlier this year on promoting electoral integrity in the country. Watch the full discussion in the first part of our series -- ‘Making Elections Work for the People – The Role of Civil Society’ on our page or listen to a few insights here.
“State capture is one of the most dangerous aspects of corruption where the entire legal system of the country from law making to implementation is captured by a few in power.” -- Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) Executive Director Nadishani Perera
With the Presidential Election due to be held in less than two weeks, we look back at a series of discussions we conducted earlier this year on promoting electoral integrity in the country. Watch the full discussion in the first part of our series -- ‘Making Elections Work for the People – The Role of Civil Society’ on our page or listen to a few insights here.
“It is about public trust in their representation in the governance of a country. It is not just about nominations and campaigning, but also the entire context in which the elections take place. Public confidence in that entire process needs to be at a high level as they’re electing people to represent them in a representative democracy. So, the technical part of the process managed by the respective institutions ensure part of it, but the State also must ensure that other factors which affect confidence and trust in the system are also maintained.” -- Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement President Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne.
