Iceland Almost Got A Female Majority Parliament But Election Recount Changed Everything
Have you ever seen or heard of a female-majority parliament? In India, we’re still in the process of ensuring greater participation of women in our judiciary, so proper women’s representation in the government is still a far-fetched notion, forget a female-majority. But it wasn’t that far away for Iceland. In their recent parliamentary elections, the voters seemed to have elected a female-majority parliament. However, a recount of election votes stopped this from becoming a reality. Iceland’s election shows that they will have a male-majority parliament after all.
Before the election recount, it was believed that 33 women were elected in the parliament. But the recount showed that 30 women were selected out of the 63-seat parliament. This still means that six more women have beeb elected to the Icelandic Parliament. However, since only 30 women were selected out of the 63-seat parliament, it makes it clear that Iceland will continue to have a male-majority parliament. The current Prime Minister of Iceland is a woman, though: Katrin Jakobsdottir.
As of yet, no European country has crossed the 50% mark when it comes to female members of parliament. According to date from Inter Parliamentary Union, as reported by BBC, Sweden came the closest with a 47% female parliament, and Finland, with 46%.
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As per reports, there are only three countries worldwide that have more women in their parliament than men—Rwanda (61.3%), Cuba (53.4%), and Nicaragua (50.6%). Mexico and the United Arab Emirates have a 50-50 ration of men and women parliamentarians.
Out of all the 195 countries, there are only 3 countries that have more women representation and only 2 countries that have a 50/50 split. It really goes to show that women everywhere in the world are not given equal opportunities and representation in their own parliament. In the case of Iceland, it was all set to become the fourth country to have a woman-majority parliament but the election recount, unfortunately, showed otherwise, and not they are to have a male-majority government after all.
Also Read: Women Leaders Are More Empathetic, Open To Newer Ideas And Don’t Care For Gender Norms. The Future Is Female
However, if there is one country that we can bet on to make this a reality next, it is Iceland. Iceland is one of the most gender-equal countries in the world. In fact, in March this year, it was ranked as one of the most gender-equal countries in the world for the 12th time by the World Economic Forum (WEF) report. So we can keep our fingers crossed!
