“In the initial days, the patriarchal society was reluctant to accept our leadership, an attitude that greatly dismayed and discouraged me,” says Sanju Kumari Chaudhari, deputy-mayor of Kohalpur municipality in the mid-western district of Banke. Many underestimated her, arguing women could not take up such a big responsibility.
But five years on, Chaudhari appears buoyant. “With the confidence I have gained, now I am capable of taking up the responsibility of mayor,” she says.
As their tenure draws to a close, ApEx talked to more than half a dozen local women leaders to learn of their experiences. Their experiences were varied but all of them spoke of having to battle patriarchy, with the society still reluctant to accept women leaders.
Says Menuka Kafle, vice-chairperson, National Association of Rural Municipalities of Nepal, women representatives are often questioned on their competence and knowledge.
“But in the past five years women leaders have proven themselves, in many cases performing better than their male counterparts,” says Kafle.
Gita Adhikari, deputy mayor of Damak municipality in the eastern district of Jhapa, also singles out the patriarchal mindset as the prominent challenge women leaders faced in the past five years.
They were also crippled by lack of experience, lack of clarity about their work, and in many places, denial of basic facilities such as vehicles for easy movement.
They gradually overcame such barriers as various organizations reached out to them with training and orientation programs.
Lack of education was another stumbling block for many women representatives. A study carried out by Asia Foundation in 2019 showed that the majority of women leaders had only basic education.
Only 12 percent of the surveyed women representatives were illiterate; another 22 percent were barely literate i.e. they could do basic reading and writing. The report emphasized the need for capacity building and a supportive environment for women in local bodies.
The 2017 elections were a watershed in women’s representation in politics and state mechanisms. A record 41 percent were elected in local governments.
Of the total 35,041 local representatives, 20,689 were male, and 14,352 female. Still, male chairs made for an overwhelming majority: of 6,473 ward chairs, there are only 62 women.
The parties mostly picked male candidates for mayoral posts and female candidates for deputy mayors in order to honor the constitutional position that one among the two should be female.
At the ward level, the Local Level Electoral Act 2017 has reserved two seats in each of the nearly 7,000 ward committees for women, one of whom has to be a Dalit.
Altogether 6,567 Dalit women were represented across the country but there was a lack of Dalit candidates in 175 wards. Over the past five years, an overwhelming number of women have served as deputies and members of the ward committees.
In 753 local governments, seven women are mayors and 11 are chairs of rural municipalities. In the first part of this series (see ‘A case of clashes egos, unclear roles’), we investigated efforts to minimize the role of women deputy mayors and legal bias against empowering deputies.
Some deputy mayors complain about not being allowed to exercise their legal rights. “I did not face such problems given my sound academic background,” says Adhikari. “But most other women representatives did.”
Adhikari, however, does not believe deputies don’t have any executive rights. “There is a lot of scope if women can be assertive. In many places, women’s handling of covid was greatly appreciated. Moreover, there is more transparency and less corruption in places with women at the helm,” she adds.
Says Meena Poudel, a political analyst, women who have served in local governments have mixed feelings about their roles. Some are encouraged and ready to take on bigger leadership roles while others are fed up by the many obstacles. “Along with giving women more space, the political parties are also obliged to create an environment for them to perform their duties.”
Political parties are still hesitant to allow local women leaders from contesting for chiefs of municipalities and rural municipalities. They reckon women do not have sufficient resources, particularly money, to win elections.
“The experience of the past five years shows that women can both win elections and perform their duties well,” says Chaudhari. “So the political parties have no excuse not to give women more leadership opportunities.”
Women’s presence in local governments has yielded some positive results. “They have tended to raise issues of gender violence and women’s health and education, which tend to be ignored by male representatives,” says Poudel.
Similarly, women have not resisted from taking austerity measures, cutting spending in non-productive sectors.
Women find it easier to share their problems with elected women representatives. They also find it easier to work on women-led social initiatives, which in turn has increased their social participation.
In the next local elections, women leaders are sure to press for more women candidates even as parties remain reluctant to go beyond the minimum constitutional limit of 33 percent.
One of the vital roles played by women in the past five years is as chairs of vice-chair-led judicial commissions, which are mandated to settle small disputes at local level. A study by the Municipal Association in 2021 suggests that women leaders are good at dispute-resolution through reconciliation.
Historically, women have had a poor presence in local bodies. In the 2010 municipal elections, Sadhana Devi Pradhan won the elections of Kathmandu municipal. In the first elections of local bodies held in 1991 after the restoration of democracy in 1990, only one percent of women were elected, a threshold that reached 21 percent in 1994 elections after the fielding of 20 percent women candidates was made legally mandatory. The number of female representatives is increasing in governance too.
Female representatives are earning public trust
Binod Poudel
Using data from citizen surveys (conducted by Kathmandu University, Interdisciplinary Analysts, and the Asia Foundation) and politicians’ surveys (conducted by Yale University, London School of Economics, Nepal Administrative Staff College and Governance Lab), we are beginning to better understand the functioning of local representatives. With respect to deputy mayors, two findings have already emerged.
First, deputy mayors are earning the trust of their constituents. Back in 2018, when local representatives had just assumed office, citizens had seen mayors more favorably than deputy mayors. But that is not the case now. This is consistent with India’s experience, where citizens have come to support local female politicians after seeing them perform.
Second, there seems to be an alignment of policy priorities between citizens and deputy mayors. While the alignment is not perfect, it is certainly not worse than the alignment of priorities between citizens and mayors.
In a survey last year, the majority of deputy mayors we interviewed expressed their intention to run for mayors in the next local elections. (The remaining forty percent had yet to make up their mind.) This kind of confidence among deputy mayors would have been unlikely had they not done well in office.
Poudel is a Kathmandu-based researcher on local bodies
