Eight women MPs in Fiji's parliament

Transcript

Fiji has eight women parliamentarians after the country's landmark elections last week.

That has pleased the country's women's groups, who say a 16 percent share of seats is above the region's average.

There are women on both sides of the house, with five in the ruling Fiji First party, and three in opposition with, Ro Teimumu Kepa leading the largest opposition party.

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls of Femlink Pacific told Sally Round it's a strong group.

SHARON BHAGWAN ROLLS: I think all of them bring some very important leadership issues. Obviously the Fiji First Party has Dr Jiko Luveni who has been serving as Minister for Women in the interim government. You have the traditional leadership of Ro Teimumu Kepa you also have Tupou Draunidalo who is also the President of the National Federation Party and she brings a very young, vibrant but very broad perspective. But I'm also interested for me personally to see some of the emergence of new women in politics. I think Lorna Eden coming in from Suvusavu with a background in tourism is going to be very important because she brings a different perspective. You have Veena Patnajah who's been in broadcasting and the media. So I think these are women who are very aware, very knowledgeable from their own experiences, and we're looking forward to working with all of them. As well as those who were candidates as well because I think we now have this very strong cadre of women who have emerged through the political process. And we want to you know continue to see an investment in that space as well.

SALLY ROUND: Initially during that constitutional consultation process you were calling for temporary special measures to get the right proportion of women in parliament, is that call still going to be made?

SBR: I think it's going to be very important to see the work around the constitution and that's going to require a very strong collaboration between all the right space, civil society groups. Because there are still those imbalances. We still need temporary special measures because with the single constituency as well we don't really have that kind of level playing field so to speak for women. So it's going to be very important to continue to have that conversation and help the elected government understand its obligations particularly under the UN convention on women's rights.

SR: And how do you think the new electoral system helped in terms of getting women into parliament, did it help or did it not help?

SBR: I don't think it helped. If you look at the analysis of how different voting systems have worked, and also the fact that you had this open list rather than the kinds of preferential voting we could have had. The fact that we could have had some quotas towards getting women in, or even reserved seats, would have been a nice transition. Nonetheless we're here, it's an important step in our transition in rebuilding democracy and the focus of course is to re-energise, regroup and look at the work for the next four years.