It is discouraging that the 13th Jatiya Sangsad will be poorly represented by women parliamentarians. Only seven women out of 85 female candidates were elected in the recently concluded national polls. Among the aspirants, 66 contested with party nominations, while 19 ran as independents.
With seven elected JS members alongside 50 reserved seats, the total number of women in parliament will, at best, be 57, indicating a disappointing picture for the women's community.
On the other hand, the parliament this time will have at least 293 elected male members, chosen from nearly 2,000 candidates. This clearly shows a stark disparity between men's and women's representation in the next parliament.
This signals that women's role in the country's lawmaking remains peripheral, even though they constitute nearly half of the total 127 million voters, alongside 1,220 voters belonging to the third gender.
Historically, after independence in 1971, the country's first parliament had only 15 women representatives. The number rose to 32 in the second Sangsad, with two directly elected and 30 from reserved seats. The number of reserved seats later increased to 50 in the ninth Jatiya Sangsad. Women's representation reached 71 members at one point, including the highest number of 21 directly elected women. During the tenure of the Awami League, although the elections of 2014, 2018, and 2024 were one-sided and controversial, 18, 23, and 19 women were elected respectively.
Of the women who won in the recently held national election, six were BNP-nominated candidates, while the other was an independent candidate, Barrister Rumin Farhana, a rebel from the same party.
If we examine why only seven women won in the 2026 national election, the foremost reason is that they received far fewer nominations than men. Men received 22 times more nominations than women, leaving little room for women to be elected in large numbers. It is evident that had more nominations been given to women, they could have performed better.
Sadly, the political parties did not keep their pledges. In the July National Charter, they promised to nominate at least five percent women candidates. However, none fulfilled this commitment. They breached their promise well before voting began, as the highest nomination rate for women was only around four percent by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which fielded 291 candidates. Jamaat-e-Islami, which led the 11-party alliance and won 77 seats, did not field a single woman candidate.
This is disgraceful for the political parties and reflects their trivial attitude toward women's representation in national elections. It is particularly painful because women were central to the July uprising. Their active role in the 2024 people's uprising helped pave the way for this national election, in which political parties participated.
The time has come for political parties to transform their outlook toward women by creating greater space for them, keeping in mind their contributions and success in every sphere of national life.
