SERIES: Parliamentary Elections 2024 – Where have all the women gone?

As Sri Lanka prepares to elect parliament representatives, women candidates are conspicuous by their absence

• The main political parties in Sri Lanka, the UNP, UPFA/SLFP, ITAK, SLMC, and JVP, have allocated only about 5% of their nominations for women during 2010 and 2015 parliamentary elections

• Data shows that the highest number of female nominees were from the Western Province districts of Colombo and Gampaha

• Batticaloa and Badulla districts in the Eastern and Uva Provinces have not seen a single woman nominee from a major party from 2010 to 2020

• Women candidates face many structural barriers, including ad hoc nomination processes, all-male nomination boards, and less support for campaigns

By Pamodi Waravita

COLOMBO – When Mohamed Butto Fathima Bisliya, former provincial councillor from the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Sri Lanka’s premier Muslim political party, attended the candidate-selection meeting by the party ahead of the 2020 Parliamentary Election, she had to travel from Puttalam in the North-West of Sri Lanka to Colombo, the commercial capital, where the meeting was held at 10.30 pm in the night.

“My friend and I were the only women in a hall full of 100 plus men. We requested at the meeting to nominate at least one woman and a former organiser for Puttalam used foul language on us. He wanted to know who had asked us to come into politics. In that hall, no man stopped him,” recounted Bisliya, highlighting the hurdles women must overcome even to secure nomination from a political party to contest in an election.

Butto entered local government politics as a provincial councillor in 2018 due to the 25% quota. Yet, in 2020 the SLMC didn’t nominate a single woman candidate for the parliamentary elections. This is not a problem limited to one party – an analysis of the nomination patterns of all major parties from 2010 to 2020 show little to no space given to women candidates in their nomination lists.

As such, although women make up for more than 52% of Sri Lanka’s population and 56% of registered voters, they accounted for barely 5% of legislators in the State’s top decision-making body between 2020 and 2024. To improve women’s representation in politics, the country passed a law in 2017 which mandated a 25% quota for women in local government.

Although the quota saw a historic change in Sri Lanka’s local government authorities in terms of women’s representation, it also highlighted the “unpreparedness” of parties at the time to nominate women for the local government elections which showed the poor gender capital of political parties themselves, said Prof. Prabha Manuratne, Director, Centre for Gender Equity and Equality at the University Grants Commission (UGC). She was part of an assessment of the impact of the 25% quota jointly implemented by Murugala, Centre for Progressive Politics and Policy and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES).

Shy to nominate women

The woefully inadequate women’s representation is a systemic problem, with political parties being reluctant to nominate women and further, nomination boards generally being all-male, showing their structural indifference towards including women. When it comes to the parliamentary election, there is no quota mandating women’s representation. This year, for the November parliamentary Election, the National People’s Party (NPP), has nominated 32 women while the Samagi Jana Balawegeya (SJB) has nominated 15 women. Both the NPP and the SJB have additionally allocated four seats for women respectively in their National Lists.

According to the final nomination lists released by the EC, in 2020, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) which formed the government made room for just 10 women in their nomination list for the parliamentary election – 4% from the total 252 nominees they put forward. In the same year – the SJB nominated only nine women in total to make up 3.4% of their 262-long nomination list while the NPP nominated 16 women (6% of the 262 people they nominated).  

The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) – Sri Lanka’s largest Tamil political party – nominated three women in the same year from a total of 44 nominees. This year, the ITAK has nominated six women in total this year; two from Batticaloa, two from Ampara, one from Vanni, and two from Jaffna.

The nomination lists from 2015 and 2010 show that the main political parties have allocated only about 5% of their nominations for women. In 2015, the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) which split to form the majority SLPP in 2020) nominated only 17 women from 241 nominees. The United National Party (UNP) –  which split to form the SJB in 2020) nominated 16 women to their 262-person list while the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the largest party in the present NPP grouping of activists, academics, and interest groups) nominated only nine women. The ITAK nominated two women in 2015 to their 44-person list while the SLMC didn’t nominate any.

In 2010, the UPFA nominated eight women, the UNP 15 women, and the ITAK one woman. The JVP and the SLMC contested under coalitions that year.

The nomination lists further highlight that the women nominees have largely represented Colombo and Gampaha in the Western Province while Batticaloa in the East and Badulla in Uva have not seen a single woman nominee in the past three elections. On average, Colombo has seen about five-woman nominees in the last three elections while other districts have just seen one. Most districts have repeat nominees showing a trend of women being nominated when they already have established voter bases in their electorates as opposed to parties encouraging new politicians to take the helm.

Decoding the past nomination lists, Manjula Gajanayake, the Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Reforms and Electoral Studies (IRES) told CIR that there were two key patterns: key political parties had nominated very few women while independent groups had nominated many women.

“There were nearly 320 independent groups in the last election, and they nominate more women to fill up their nomination lists. But, occasionally we have received complaints that the women who have been included were not even aware of their nomination,” said Gajanayake.

Male-only nomination boards

Abysmal nominations for women reflect the male-centric nomination boards that fail to consider the inclusion of women. Hirunika Premachandra, an SJB opposition parliamentarian from the recently dissolved 16^th Parliament of Sri Lanka, recalls consistently facing male-only nomination boards, first as part of the UPFA and then the UNP. Now, as part of the SJB, she has received nomination without too much hassle as she is a former MP.

“As Samagi Vanitha Balawegeya, the women’s wing of the SJB, we requested the party leaders to at least nominate one woman from each district, making a total of 25 women in the list,” says Premachandra, who entered politics after the 2011 assassination of her politician-father, Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra.

She adds that it is a “difficult task” for a newcomer-woman to even secure nomination, let alone battle the challenges that come with the current electoral system: “Even if you’re talented, you won’t get in – you have to either be from a popular background or have a lot of money. This applies to men too.”

“This year, I’m on the SJB nomination board, alongside another woman,” says Rohini Kumari Wijerathne, a former SJB MP and whose father and husband have been in politics and represented Matale, a district in Sri Lanka’s Central Province. Although they had asked for at least one woman from each district to be nominated, the SJB had only ended up nominating 15 women in total.

Former legislator Shanthi Sriskandarasa was nominated from the ITAK in 2015 to contest in the Parliamentary Election from Vanni in the island’s North. She says that she faced a very ad hoc process as there had been “no criteria” for the nominations and she was nominated as the party had wished for at least one woman to be included on the list

Raviraj Sasikala, also was nominated from ITAK in 2020, echoed the same concern about the lack of selection criteria impacting women who had been in the party for a long period not receiving nominations.  Her entry to politics followed her husband, Nadarajah Raviraj’s assassination in 2006. He had represented Parliament from 1988 to 2006. This year, she is contesting from the Democratic Tamil National Alliance (TDNA).

Kaushalya Ariyarathne, an Executive Committee member of the NPP and first time candidate, says that the NPP’s nomination panel does include women this time around and that the panel would consider women, youth, people with disabilities, and people from different ethnicities for the nomination list. 

“There is a lot of support for women from the NPP as we consider little things like how transport is arranged for women during late night meetings”
NPP Executive Committee member Kaushalya Ariyarathne

Male-centric political culture

Ariyarathne, an inclusion specialist who holds a PhD in gender studies, notes that a huge responsibility of increasing women’s representation in Parliament lies with the political parties’ decision-making bodies. She says that parties ought to consider how “women-friendly” they are, including proactive measures being taken to accommodate women who are breastfeeding or need care work when they come for political meetings.

“There is a lot of support for women from the NPP as we consider little things like how transport is arranged for women during late night meetings,” she said, explaining measures taken by the NPP to ensure women’s political engagement.

Raviraj further says that although times have changed now so that more women wish to come forward in politics, a lack of support from political parties was preventing their progression.

Premachandra says that she received Rs. 500,000 (approx. USD 1,700) from the UPFA and Rs. 1 million (approx. USD 3,400) from the UNP for her former campaigns.

“I haven’t received funds from the SJB for the previous election. In my first election, my father’s friends helped me. I only spent around Rs. 2.7 million (approx. USD 9,200). It was soon after my father’s death, so I didn’t have to spend too much money. Compared to others, I had a lot of support from the people. As a candidate during the 2015 UNP-led government, I spent Rs. 3.7 million (approx. USD 12,600). I never spent too much money because I had support from the media. This time we’re in the opposition and we have to spend for social media campaigning for which I don’t have the budget right now. For a woman, it’s difficult. Men can go and ask for money and find sponsors easily.”

Lihini Fernando, an SJB-er and a candidate on the National list, too said that funding for the campaign, especially if the candidate is running from Colombo, was difficult, as it required “very large budgets” as most traditional parties did not campaign centrally.

Still an uphill battle

The answer to the problem of poor representation of women in the country’s top decision-making body lies with the patriarchal political parties, according to Sudarshani Fernandopulle, a medical doctor turned politician, and former Chair of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus.

During her tenure as Caucus Chair, Fernandopulle tabled two private member bills – one to mandate parties to allocate 50% of National List seats to women and the second, to ensure that 30% of party leadership is represented by women. The draft bills are pending approval, and Fernandopulle is hopeful that the next Parliament would ensure their passage.

Shiromi Indika Cooray, an SJB-er who represented the Western Province Council (WPC) following the introduction of the 25% quota told CIR that despite the quota indicating the availability of an opportunity and political parties’ readiness, the parties were reluctant to nominate women.

Manuratne defines this problem as a structural issue within “undemocratic, unprofessional” political parties.

“Power is concentrated on a few people.  The system produces more of the same. To overcome this, women should take a different route to enter politics or climb the ranks. Due to the haphazard processes in political parties that are run by a few people at the top, it falls upon the candidates to mobilise funding and access networks. This is the challenge before candidates who don’t come into politics with other forms of social capital. That’s why actresses and those with popular political family backgrounds get the ticket – they’re regarded as being able to win.”