New Delhi, Feb 14 (NationPress) In Bangladesh, numerous advocacy groups and news outlets have drawn attention to the lack of female candidates in the general election, even though both the founding leaders and current authorities have committed to ensuring that politics is accessible to both men and women.

As the nation prepared for the 13th national election, reports indicated “systemic design and failure” as the primary causes for this discrepancy. This year, 51 political parties participated in the election held on Thursday, with 1,981 candidates vying for seats. Out of these, only 86 women were candidates, and only seven won – six from the victorious Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and one independent.

According to Bangladesh’s popular newspaper ‘Prothom Alo’, “Political parties opted to nominate fewer women this time around, following a longstanding trend. Women’s rights advocates had anticipated an increase in women’s nominations following the July movement.”

“However, despite significant protests from women’s rights activists, political parties agreed to nominate only 5 percent of their total candidates in discussions with the Jatiya Oikyamoto Commission (National Consensus Commission). Unfortunately, they did not fulfill that commitment,” the report noted.

The Commission was established in early February last year to assess and implement recommendations put forth by six major reform commissions initiated by the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government.

In an effort to increase female representation in the law-making process, Bangladesh had instituted reserved seats for women in parliament, which The Daily Star previously described as “an affirmative action strategy used globally to address historical injustices and dismantle structural barriers. However, the goal of such measures is not permanence; rather, it is to foster a society where women can compete and thrive equally alongside men.”

The report from last June emphasized that women should enter parliament based on public preference and political merit, rather than through party patronage.

“We started with 15 reserved seats in 1972. Today, that number has grown to 50. While this expansion appears to demonstrate progress on paper, in practice, the mechanisms for filling these seats – meant to amplify women’s voices – have become politically ornamental, elite-driven, and detached from public legitimacy. Instead of electing women based on public preference and political merit, the system centralizes authority within party leadership,” the analysis stated.

Reflecting on the history of women’s nominations, the Prothom Alo report cited a research study by the Election Commission and Khan Foundation titled ‘Empowering Women Through Reserved Seats in Parliament: Fight or Flight Response?’, as well as newsletters from Democracy International and the newspaper’s own investigative reports.

“In the first national parliament (1973-1975), women were represented solely in the 15 reserved seats. By the second parliament (1979-1982), there were 32 women members, including 2 elected and 30 reserved seats. In the fourth parliament (1988-1990), there were no reserved seats, with only 4 elected representatives. In the fifth parliament (1991-1995), the number rose to 35 women members, including 5 elected representatives,” it recounted.

In the February 1996 general election, referred to as a “BNP's one-sided” exercise, “3 women were directly elected, alongside 30 reserved seats,” it added.

The Khaleda Zia-led BNP government was short-lived, leading to a snap election in June where eight women were directly elected, raising their total representation to 38.

In subsequent elections, the number of reserved seats increased to 45, with seven women elected in the eighth election and 21 in the ninth national election.

“Eventually, the number of reserved seats for women increased to 50, resulting in a total of 70 women members of parliament. During the tenure of the Awami League, the elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024 were characterized as one-sided and contentious, with 18, 23, and 19 women elected respectively,” the report concluded.