Women and Voting, 1992-2005

• Author: Cynthia Barrow-Giles
• Pages: 128-145

128 General Elections and Voting

Notwithstanding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

Caribbean women continue to experience discriminatory practices,

including marginalization at the level of parliament. The Commonwealth

Parliamentary Association (CPA) admonished governments to engage in

strategies and measures aimed at the substantially reducing gender

inequality. Politically, it was the expectation of the Commonwealth that

women would occupy 30 per cent of decision-making positions within

the community. However, in terms of reducing the representation gap in

national parliaments, none of the governments of Commonwealth

Caribbean countries have met that ambitious goal. While some

governments and political parties have responded both in terms of

recruiting and nominating women to contest national elections, and

appointing them to the Nominated Chamber (where appropriate), several

Caribbean countries have not been sufficiently proactive. Indeed, it was

only in 2004 that Antigua and Barbuda finally elected a woman to the

elected House of Assembly.

Table 4:1 shows the regional variation in the contesting of elections

by women since Jamaica’s first general elections fought under universal

adult suffrage. In that election two women faced the electorate. While

they were both unsuccessful, nevertheless Jamaica’s electoral record shows

that women have contested every single election in that country since

1944. Women were also nominated as candidates in Barbados, and

Trinidad and Tobago in their first general elections in 1951 and 1950

respectively. Ten years after the grant of universal adult suffrage, women

WOMEN AND VOTING,1992–20051

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Women and Voting 129

faced the polls as candidates in Belize and Saint Lucia. Between the first

appearance of women as candidates at the polls in Belize and 1989 only

12 females contested general elections and only two, Gwendolyn Lizarraga

and Jane Usher, were successful. All other female candidates up to 1989

were unsuccessful. Five other countries stand out for special attention. It

was not until the 1970s and 1980s that political parties selected women

to represent them electorally in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts-

Nevis, The Bahamas, Anguilla, and Antigua and Barbuda.2

Table 4:1

Year Women First Contested General Elections, 1944–2005

Source: Compiled from election statistics for the selected countries.

Between 1944 and 1991 less than one tenth the number of people

contesting elections were female. Men have dominated electoral and

national politics. Commenting on the gender differential in electoral

politics in the region, Patrick Emmanuel states that:

for most of the period prior to the introduction of adult franchise

women had been formally debarred from being candidates or

voters. . . .

Still, after more than four decades of general elections, electoral

candidacy in the region remains male-dominated. Aggregate

data for the ten countries show that thus far of a total of 2, 911

candidates contesting in the 101 general elections, 2,702 or 93

Country Year Outcome

Anguilla 1976 W

Antigua and Barbuda 1980 L

The Bahamas 1987 W

Barbados 1951 W

Belize 1961 W

Dominica 1957 L

Grenada 1954 L

Guyana 1953 W

Jamaica 1944 L

Montserrat 1958 L

St. Kitts-Nevis 1971 L

Saint Lucia 1961 L

St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1971 W

Trinidad and Tobago 1950 L