Absence of women from the mayoral race in Dhaka South City, Dhaka North City and the port city of Chittagong shocked women empowerment campaigners.
They were equally shocked to find few women contesting for 134 common seats of ward councilors in the three cities.
The Election Commission records show that in Dhaka South City out of 386 councilor candidates only six are women, reports the New Age.
In Dhaka North City out of 280 candidates contesting for the common seats only 12 are women.
In Chittagong out of 213 councilor candidates only three are women.
DSC is set to elect 57 ward councilors, DNC –36 councilors and Chittagong—41.
Both women and men are free to contest for the common seats while only women can contest for the reserved seats.
In 2002, the undivided city of Dhaka elected six women and 84 men as ward commissioners for the common seats.
The 2010 civic polls in the port city of Chittagong returned 41 men councillors, in other words either there were no woman contestants or none of them were elected from the common seats.
The negligible participation of women candidates for the common seats only points to the harsh reality that no empowerment of women took place in Bangladesh as yet, said Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association executive director Salma Ali.
She called it a disturbing trend that women stay away from decision making process despite their huge participation in all political movements.
She said that this happens because women cannot spend as men do to get elected.
Besides, she said, male dominated central committees of political parties have a tendency to nominate women leaders only to the seats reserved for them.
She said that until and unless the political parties changed their mindsets there would be no improvement in the situation.
She said that the political parties were oblivious of the fact that the Representation of Peoples Order, better known as RPO, requires each registered political party to set aside at least 33 per cent of positions for women at every level of leadership.
Before withdrawing her nomination, the lone female mayoral aspirant for Dhaka North City, Sarah Begum Kobori told New Age that unless political parties nominated and supported female aspirants their empowerment would remain a distant dream.
‘AL should have supported me and if I was elected as the mayor I would never discriminate between men and women. My main goal is always to work for the common good’ said Kobori.
Bangladesh Nari Pragati Sangha executive director Rokeya Kabir said the need for the reserved seats would continue so long women would stay away from contesting for the common seats.
She identified women’s lack of financial strength and the reluctance of the political parties to field them for the common seats as the main reasons for their backwardness.
She said that men never face these obstacles.
Until and unless more women contest for the common seats, the need for the reserved seats would continue in local government elections of Bangladesh, said Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah professor of public administration at the University of Dhaka and chairman of Jatiya Nirbachan Parjabekkhan Parishad.
Women’s participation in local government elections and representation in Parliament did not increase keeping pace with their ratio in the total population, he said.
He said that the nation must keep in mind that women constitute 50 per cent of the country’s population.
He told New Age that due to the state’s failure to provide security of life women were reluctant to contest elections.
The other big factors keeping women away from polls and politics, he said, was their inability to spend like men.
Besides, he sad, women elected from reserved seats feel disappointed as they cannot help their constituencies.
