in just 10 days voters in Sri Lanka will cast their ballot in a high stakes presidential election the polls scheduled for September 21st will be the first such election after Sri Lanka spiraled under an economic meltdown back in 2022 and ever since has been trying to slowly inch its way back to recovery but one look at the 38 candidates contesting the elections triggers the question of representation not one of the 38 leaders vying the top job in is a female candidate this in a country where women make up over 52% of the voters of the 17 million registered voters Sri Lanka is not a stranger to having women leaders in position of power on the contrary the island nation set a global president decades ago on July 21st 1916 siru bandra NAA became the first democratically elected female prime minister in the entire world during her lifetime she went on to serve three terms as the prime minister of Sri Lanka her daughter went on to become the first and the only female president of Sri Lanka however these women largely remain anomalies in the island nation's history 60 years since siravo's election women's political representation in the Sri Lankan Parliament remained abysmally low like in 2020 only 5.3% 12 out of 225 legislators in the lunan Parliament for women for all the latest news download the Von app And subscribe to our YouTube channel