US Mid-Term elections

A record breaking number of women stood for this year's US mid term elections, the largest since 1992.

However, according to a report on the eve of the US mid-term elections, Americans will wake up on Wednesday morning to the first drop of women in Congress women since 1978.

There are currently only 90 women out of 535 in the US Congress, which includes both legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and and Senate. Partly inspired by the Sarah Palin factor many while putting themselves forward were ultimately not selected by their party.

Furthermore, many of the women who have been successfully selected as candidates face a final hurdle; they are standing for the Democrats, the party in power with an under-fire President, who have an uphill task this year and are likely to lose rather than gain seats.

There are 139 women candidates this year out of 944 within the main two parties Republicans and Democrats. Pundits predict the overall number of women could be reduced from 90(16.8%) to 80 (14.9%).

Here in the UK, women fare little better. They make up only 19.3% of the House of Commons, 14.3% of Council leaders and 9.6% of the senior judiciary. However, in the Welsh Assembly women make up 34.1% of members because of positive action programmes.

It is lamentable that the USA is likely to see a drop in women in Congress after the elections tomorrow. The relatively small number of women is similar to here in the UK and is already desperately low.

More must be done to ensure that institutions like the UK Parliament and US Congress that seek to export democracy to other parts of the World are themselves beacons of modernity and representation.

Positive action programmes like those run by OBV with the Welsh Assembly demonstrate how to promote the inclusion and success of women and BME communities within the political and decision making arena.

Ashok Viswanathan