In male-headed political structures, women candidates are not considered ‘winning horses’
By Pamodi Waravita
Female politicians continue to face an uphill battle in politics, especially when obtaining nominations from their mainstream political parties and spending money on their election campaigns. Women representing the current Parliament note that structural and financial barriers are forcing them to reckon with their future in politics as they still only have one foot in the door.
A case in point is Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Rohini Wijeratne Kavirathna, who first entered Parliament in 2015, and says that she has sold four lands in the past 10 years to fund her political career and educate her children. In such a context, she questioned how women could even “put their head through the door”.
She said that despite coming from a family with a strong political background (her father was a Deputy Minister while her late husband was a Member of Parliament), the United National Party (UNP) had been reluctant to give her nominations in 2015.
“Other party members were against it – they thought I couldn’t do it due to various reasons such as a lack of financial means. I had my strength of mind and that’s what allowed me to get in.
“The electorate supported me because I was a teacher and due to the political backgrounds of my husband and father. I didn’t have a lot of support in 2015 from the party,” said Wijeratne, adding that if parties did not perceive a female candidate as popular or as a “winning candidate,” they would receive less internal backing.
“I received some financial support in 2015 [from the UNP], but I did hear that others received more support than me. After I entered Parliament in 2015 I worked hard, so at the next General Elections in 2019, I was considered an essential candidate. I was more reluctant to contest in 2019 as the UNP had split in two, but the SJB promised me its backing. The SJB provided me with Rs. 1 million in financial support for the 2020 campaign,” she said.
Patronage politics and female candidates
“Women don’t have as much of a chance to connect with private well-wishers and donors either, to help them with their campaigns. Even the business community will support male candidates because they can open a bottle together and become friends. We don’t have that opportunity to receive support, so it is very difficult for a woman to even enter the political system,” said Wijeratne.
Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus Chair and Parliamentarian Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle, who first entered Parliament in 2010, noted too that for female candidates, raising campaign finances was difficult as they did not tend to support illicit deals. “So people think there is no point in supporting us.”
However, Gender and Election Working Group (GEWG) Voluntary Convenor Kanaka Abeygunawardana observed that even female politicians could benefit from the existing patronage system in the country if the political party they represented presented them as a “winning horse”.
“Our political system is based on patronage so you bet on the winning horse. How the party presents the candidate is how they receive prominence in this patronage system. Women are on a sticky wicket because if they’re not dominating or represented as equal to the men in the area, people won’t bet on them. The electorate is not for clean politics, transparency, or accountability either. We need to change the electorate too,” said Abeygunawardana.
Questionable nomination processes
Dr. Fernandopulle said that the issue mainly lay with the leadership bodies of political parties that did not consider women as being ‘suitable’ for politics due to its violent and expensive nature.
“I didn’t have a problem with the nomination process as I came in after the assassination of my husband. However, for other women, receiving a nomination is a tough game as there is no clear system through which they can enter. It depends on the party leaders and general secretaries, and their consent. There is no clear nomination process for any candidate – male or female.”
Adding that some political parties did not have women even on their nomination boards, she said that women were only considered as ‘suitable’ by parties after the loss of their male family members: “There is a ready-made electorate there.”
Dr. Fernandopulle contested with the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) in 2020. “I didn’t receive any financial backing for my campaign then. I think this was the same for the other candidates as well.”
SLPP MP Muditha Prishanthi too said she had been granted a nomination to contest the 2020 General Elections immediately after the death of her husband, who had been a parliamentarian.
“Prior to that I was involved politically in women’s organisations and in my husband’s politics. The party did not provide me with money to contest, but it did support me in organising in other ways. I was already known in the district due to my husband’s popularity. But someone who enters politics newly would find it difficult. There are financial issues and many women are scared of the campaign trail because they face more ‘kapili’ (sabotage),” said Prishanthi.
Meanwhile, SLPP MP Rajika Wickramasinghe said that when she first contested in 2015, she had received the opportunity to do so because she had been politically involved in women’s organisations and because her husband was in politics. She had lost in 2015 but won in 2020. “I am not from Kegalle, I came to Kegalle due to my marriage so there was a lot of criticism against me, with people saying that someone from Colombo shouldn’t get the vote.”
Abeygunawardana pointed to other social and structural barriers that existed during an election.
“Caste plays a major role in most parts of Sri Lanka. If the man representing a particular caste from a district dies, then the best thing for a political party to do is to find his wife. Women are affected because of the perceptions of society – we are not supposed to be talking, we are supposed to be pleasing to the eye. Due to that, we are not given positions within parties as well.
“Selection procedures are also mainly done by men – sometimes, there is not a single woman. Unless we change those structures slowly, it is very difficult for women to be in politics,” she said.
On the other hand, actress-turned-politician Women’s Affairs State Minister Geetha Kumarasinghe, who currently represents the SLPP, noted that it was her “famous name, wealth, and business income” that had helped her in her political journey.
“I am not from a political family – many women come to politics after their husband or father dies. That is the procedure in Sri Lanka, otherwise women don’t engage in politics. But I was someone who had an established name – that made it easy for me to enter politics. A woman who doesn’t have that can’t even think of coming in. That is wrong, that is not what should happen in politics.
“How can people be committed to politics if they don’t have money? I don’t have any personal problems or many personal expenses, so I can spend on politics. But that is a problem in our political system,” she said.
Kumarasinghe further said that she had not received a “single cent” in financial support from the political parties she had represented since 2010 and little support otherwise.
“There was no support from the party – especially no special support due to my being a woman. The first time I contested, I lost because there were two people contesting from the same seat: Sagara Kariyawasam and me. That was one reason for me to lose that election, yet I campaigned heavily for President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the time.
“During the elections, there were a lot of false rumours about me. The party did ask me whether I could spend on a campaign – that was all they asked. I did hear that men received more financial support than me at the time, in 2010, from the party,” said Kumarasinghe.
Meanwhile, National People’s Power (NPP) MP Dr. Harini Amarasuriya said that the NPP campaigned centrally, as a party, as opposed to running individual campaigns.
“Individual candidates are not expected to spend since local organisers in charge will handle whatever financials are necessary so they are not given money individually. We are not expected to raise funds or spend on our own. Funds are collected by the party’s central fund to organise meetings and print pamphlets,” said Amarasuriya, adding that therefore, the NPP did not consider financial capabilities when handing out nominations.
Meanwhile, Samanmalee Gunasinghe, who contested from the NPP in 2020 and who has been part of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) for the past 25 years, said that she had witnessed the JVP/NPP change over the years.
“With the political background in the past, there was no chance for women to engage in politics. Politics was done by criminals, drug traffickers, or thugs. In that system, it is unlikely that women would enter politics. Even though our women comrades were willing to enter politics, that environment impacted their entry.
“However, in the past few years we have been forming women’s groups that could face those challenges. Parallel to that, the political background also changed, where more progressive politics became more popular. Our organising and awareness-raising became more strengthened, and with that, women are now ready to face that challenge,” she said, adding that it was unfair to ask women to contest in an election without providing them with the necessary understanding and support so that they would be willing to do so.
Recognising this need, Gunasinghe said that in the past two years the NPP had been involved with women in three ways: awareness-raising about political rights amongst women in a non-partisan manner at the village level, programmes for grassroots NPP women leaders on contesting elections, and forming district women leaders for the party.
Minority women
Former United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) MP Ferial Ismail Ashraff, one of just two Muslim women to have contested in an election in Sri Lanka and entered Parliament, said that her political career was a “swim against the current”.
Ashraff said that she had received the nomination after her husband passed away as party members had seen how closely she had worked with him. “But there was a bigger half of people saying that a Muslim woman shouldn’t be in politics. The community was not willing to accept it and it was difficult to convince even women to support me. But now, 20 years later, when I speak with young Muslim women and see that they accept what I have done, I consider it as a step forward.”
She added that “nothing much has changed as far as the men are concerned,” but noted the positive development that came after the 25% quota for Local Government (LG) authorities was introduced, which mandated that 25% of LG bodies must be represented by women.
“Even when the quota was being introduced, Muslim parties protested saying that they would not be able to find women to represent them. However, Muslim women activists stepped forward saying that they could find women for the parties. I assume there will be some change that seeps through to the Parliament system too as a result,” she said.
Ambika Satkunanathan, who had been part of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) National List in 2020, said that she had “zero interest” in entering politics.
“In 2020, I turned down the invitation to contest but was later included in the National List. Throughout this entire process I faced sexist, misogynistic, and abusive personal hate campaigns directed at me, especially on social media, by sections of the TNA itself. There were even claims of being in an inappropriate romantic relationship with a Tamil politician, and a Tamil TV channel telecast a skit alluding to this rumour,” Satkunanathan said, recounting her experience.
She noted that similar to other political parties in the country, Tamil parties too rarely had women holding positions of power within the parties. “Historically, Tamil women have been active in politics and were seen on political stages, even though they didn’t hold positions of power within political parties. Their participation has become less visible and we don’t commonly see women on political stages. The conservative nature of the Tamil community exacerbates the general challenges that women entering politics face.”
Women’s Caucus attempts
Female MPs said that if the system were to change to increase female representation in Parliament, then the change should come from party leaders themselves.
“The first step should come from the party leaders – they should have the will to increase female representation in Parliament. We can attempt to bring in laws for representation, but those decisions will also be finally taken by men, which means they will get delayed. The decision-making rooms are filled with men. Equality is only there as a sentence in the Constitution,” said MP Wijeratne.
Dr. Fernandopulle said that women unfortunately did not have an equal opportunity as male colleagues to enter politics, as almost all parties were headed by men: “Even within the decision-making bodies of parties, there are very few women.”
She said that on behalf of the Women’s Caucus, she had brought in two private member’s bills – one to mandate parties to provide 50% of the National List seats to women and one to ensure that 30% of party leadership is represented by women.
“We lobbied parties and asked to make voluntary amendments, but we didn’t receive any response. Only the NPP has a manifesto of 50-50 for the National List. But none of the other parties have a plan to increase women’s representation,” she said.
The 25% quota
Local Government councillors who contested in 2018 noted that the question of financial means was an important one during the interview process conducted by their respective political parties, prior to granting them nominations.
“They asked us to come to Colombo for interviews and asked how much we can spend,” said Achala Rajakaruna Kularatne, an LG Councillor who contested from the UNP in 2018, adding that this meant that “talented ones” rarely got the opportunity to contest in an election.
“We all went through the interview process in 2018. If the husbands of the potential candidates have been involved in politics, they are then prioritised. This happens from the party headquarters, yet some women fight for their spot by showing they have paddy fields and lands to support them during an election,” said Kularatne.
She added that she had supported herself in politics with the income of her husband, who was working abroad, and income obtained through her other assets.
Accordingly, elections researcher and analyst Attorney-At-Law (AAL) D.M. Dissanayake said that this led to only ‘upper-class’ women even stepping up to ask for nominations from their parties, as land rights were mostly only enjoyed by such women.
Dissanayake pointed out that the question of money was a common one that was asked by most parties when determining their nominations for any election. “If they don’t have that financial backing, the chances of them getting the nomination really decrease.”
Sujeewani Nanayakkara, another UNP LG Councillor, also said that she had been asked about her financial means to support an election run during the nomination interview at the party headquarters, while pointing out that the interview panels rarely included women.
Institute for Democratic Reforms and Electoral Studies (IRES) Executive Director (ED) Manjula Gajanayake said that political parties were reluctant to give nominations for women candidates as they did not consider them to be “winning horses”.
“Political parties are constantly treating female candidates as second citizens. Women candidates often pawn their land or other assets to cover the cost of a campaign,” he said.
Party promises
SJB General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara, noting that they had been part of the Government which had introduced the 25% women’s quota for LG bodies, said that more women needed to come forward for nominations. “We are offering training these days to encourage more women to come forward. The SJB Executive Council is prepared to increase female representation in the coming elections.”
NPP General Secretary Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe said that the party hoped to ensure that each district would have female representation at the next General Elections. “We just haven’t decided on the numbers from each district for women as we still haven’t discussed the General Elections yet. However, we can say with certainty that each district will have female representation.”
SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam said that of the current female SLPP MPs in Parliament, only Wildlife and Forest Resources Conservation Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi had funds: “We selected based on who was with the people.”
“We treat everyone as a candidate and we don’t discriminate based on gender,” Kariyawasam said in response to whether money was being unfairly allocated to male candidates over female ones when campaigning. “We help the way we can and people who don’t need that help do not take it.”
He added: “We have always been of the stance that talented persons should be given a chance. Our party allocated two National List seats to women and has the largest representation of women from any party in the current Parliament.”
The Story was originally published on The Sunday Morning on 23 June 2024 under the Electoral Integrity Fellowship of Center for Investigative Reporting, Supported by the Netherlands Embassy.
