The provisional results of the local government elections that were recently concluded at the village level show that women participation has increased by 8.3 percent, latest figures from the National Electoral Commission (NEC) show. Figures indicate that women have filled 40.54 per cent of the seats in the executive committees of villages, whereas they had occupied 32.2 percent in the seats in the previous elections held in 2016. In the City of Kigali, 2,509 elected females were elected in village executive committees out of the total 5,785, making up 43 per cent. According to NEC, Southern Province had 41.7 per cent elected female candidates after 7,288 women were elected among 17,455 members of the committees. However, female representation was a bit lower in Eastern Province, standing at 37.7 per cent as 7,367 women were elected among total 19,542 leaders elected. 39 percent of the Northern Province village executive committee members are women, meaning 6,435 among 16,105 elected leaders, according to the figures from NEC. In Western Province, elected women constitute 39.4 percent, with 7,079 out of 17,960 elected in village executive committees. Before the elections, women were urged to actively participate during the exercise to close the gender gap that is currently present in the local administrative entities. According to the Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Jeanette Bayisenge the more women are elected in positions of leadership at the grassroots level, the more the societal challenges affecting women in communities will be easily dealt with. Speaking to The New Times on Monday, Allen Atwine, a gender activist said that the increase of women in local leadership is a commendable effort, but hastened to add that men should be supportive to women in their lives. “If a husband knows his wife has some responsibilities in local authorities, most of them will not jump to fill in for them by doing chores at home,” she said, adding that in that case women will find themselves having to choose to serve the public and her own family. This, according to her, will leave women with no option but to resign from their duties to concentrate on their families. Local elections are ongoing, having completed the village and cell level, the exercise will this month proceed to the sectors and later to the districts, with the election of district executive committees consisting of mayors and vice mayors.
