Women Participation in Democratic Elections
Democracy offers leverage for participation when citizens consciously engage in process that make up democratic tradition. The fourth republic is significant in the history of Nigeria, more than two decades since inception in 1999. The expectation is that women should have fair share in democratic space and actively participated. However, women have suffered consistent under representation in Nigeria political space. Drawing from this position, this paper identified factors which hindered women participation in democratic election using the data from Ekiti state, Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive cross-sectional survey using 215 sample of women who were registered members of political parties. Data were collected and analysed quantitatively using descriptive statistics. Results showed that participants actively engaged political process, were members of political parties, and participated in campaigns for party candidates. However, it was difficult for these women to gain equal access to political advantage like male counterparts. Belief system (10.7%), patriarchy (14.9), finance (31.6%), violence (16.3%) and religious rituals (10.7%) were factors which existed as buffer against political advantage of women in Ekiti. The buffer was complemented with party structure which stringently dominated by men. Women in Ekiti had disproportionately poor representation in democratic election due to factors which acted as buffer to participation. This study therefore recommended that party structure should be deconstructed to accommodate gender and equitable competition especially in the case of Ekiti and other similar scenario.
