Hint: they’re not on lists of the official and established parties…

Iranian Political Parties Insist on Ignoring Women

Dar Sahn– In the run up to Iran’s recent election the candidate lists of both Reformists and Conservatives had one thing in common: they contained few women. They ignored the demand from women’s groups for 30% representation as candidates.

Only one list could be said to approach the demand for 1/3 representation. That was the list of the Reformists Supreme Council for Tehran’s local election. Their list included six women candidates. Few women were listed as candidates on other lists and in other cities.

It wasn’t hard to predict that women would not gain much ground as a result of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) 5th city council election. For voters, the only option to increase the number women sitting on city councils was to vote for independents along with all the women candidates listed.

Women Candidates in Iranian Cities

In most cities, the number of women candidates listed by the political parties was fewer than two. The parties claimed to have emphasized knowledge and experience, not gender. Yet, almost 50% of university graduates in the IRI are women. The list below shows how much attention the political parties pay to women experts:

The situation in other cities is not any better.

Significant growth in the presence of women as candidates

The political parties may be ignoring women, yet the presence of women candidates in election campaigns is experiencing huge growth. In provinces such as Sistan-Balouchestan and Ilam women candidates the percentage of women running for local office increased by 100%. In Lorestan and Yazd the increase in the number of women was 50%. In other provinces it was 25% and more.

The growth is considerable. Yet the number of women candidates remains quite low. Women make up only 7% of those who registered to become candidates.

As the presidential and city council elections took place at the same time, it was expected that the presence of women would become stronger. One of the mottoes of one presidential candidate was even women’s rights. The parties, however, continued to sideline women.

The conservative parties already have a low regard for the issues of women’s rights. Surprisingly the reformists acted like conservatives: preventing women from accessing positions of political power. This shows that they are not committed to what they say. It also shows that in many cities, save for Tehran, the political parties act differently from their leaders. Tehran was the only city where women made up 30% of the candidates list. One argument is that there are not enough educated and experienced women in other cities. But that cannot be true since more than half of university students are women and many of them live outside of Tehran.

To gain more powerful presence of women in the councils, people need to be active themselves. It means women need to stand for women. They need to demand more women on the candidates’ list and show more support for the women candidates. 50% of Iran’s population are women. They can change the balance of power in every city and village.

Adapted from the original Persian
http://www.darsahn.org/1396/02/25/esrare-ajib-ahzab-be-nadide-gerftan-zanan/