Madagascar New

Women and the solution for the political crisis in Madagascar

The transition government continues its process to resolve the political crisis in Madagascar.

After having organised a national conference in October to gather the opinion of all Malagasy people through their elected representatives, the transition has set up two transition parliaments. These are the Congress of Transition, which is the equivalent to the Lower House and the High Council of Transition as the Upper House.

Despite the 30-50% campaign undertaken by women associations before the conference, at present there is only 11% female representation in the High Council of Transition, specifically 10 women and 80 men. At the Congress level, women consist of only 35 out of 250 members, which is just 14% representation.

It is important to highlight that during the conference, the consideration of gender parity in the management of the transition was part of the outcomes. A possibility of 50% female participation in the two transition parliaments and the integration of gender parity in the Constitution was discussed.

Unfortunately, when the Constitution was distributed to the population, gender parity was not mentioned explicitly in the document. The women associations sent a letter to the authorities to complain about the omission, but a response is yet to be received.

In spite of this, the transition continued its process. The next step was the organisation of the Constitutional Referendum, which was held on 17 November and the anticipation of the election of local government which be held on 20 December.