Growth of women’s interest in democratic politics is an important feature of social progress - Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena

Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena says that the development of women’s interest in politics and democratic election system of people’s representation is an important feature of the progress of the society.
The Prime Minister stated this in a discussion held at the Prime Minister’s Office on 29.09.2022 with some Muslim female members of the local government bodies and Muslim ladies engaged in active politics, including former minister Mrs. Ferial Ashroff.
The Muslim representatives requested the government to increase the representation of women from 25% to 50% in the future elections for parliament, provincial councils and local government institutions. Presently, the representation of women in local government bodies has been increased to 25%, but increasing it up to 50% in the future parliamentary, provincial council and local government elections is a necessary to ensure proper representation of women who compromise more than 50% of the population, they pointed out.
Commenting on this, the Prime Minister said that the Election Commission and the political parties should discuss further and take decisions in this regard.
The Prime Minister recalled that when local government bodies increased the representation of women to 25%, the participation of women were below the expectation. Hence, it is a good sign that women are showing so much interest in the democratic election structure and politics now, he told them.
Mrs. Fereal Ashroff mentioned that the interest in politics has grown among women and there is a strong need among women to participate in the upcoming elections.
They said that women involved in local government politics will have the opportunity to solve many problems of the people at the grassroots level and that female Muslim representatives can also have more opportunities to identify the sufferings of the Muslim people and provide solutions to their problems.
The representation of women in the political arena should not differ according to religion and race, and women and children living at home are the most affected by the economic crisis.
As the opportunity for women to run for elections increases, the representation of Muslim women in areas with a large Muslim population will also increase, Mrs. Ashroff said and urged the Prime Minister to give that opportunity to all Sri Lankan women.
Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena mentioned that there is also a need for increasing the representation of youths also, both male and female.
A group of Muslim women representing the local government institutions of many districts of the country including Jaffna, Trincomalee, Ampara, Vavuniya, Puttalam, Gampaha and Colombo participated in this meeting.