Only 109 of the 2568 candidates contesting Bangladesh’s upcoming 13th Jatiya Sangsad elections are women, just over four per cent, highlighting what women’s rights activists describe as a glaring failure of political parties and election authorities to uphold even their most basic commitments to gender representation.

The issue was sharply criticised at a press conference organised by the Forum for Women’s Political Rights at the Dhaka Reporters Unity on Monday, where speakers accused political parties of treating women’s participation as symbolic rather than a democratic necessity. The Election Commission was also criticised for failing to enforce existing commitments.

According to the forum, the July National Charter 2025 obliges political parties to nominate at least five per cent women candidates in this election, with a stated goal of gradually increasing the share to 33 per cent. Yet, the reality falls well short of even this minimal requirement: 30 of the 51 parties contesting the polls have not nominated a single woman.

Activists said the figures expose a deep structural bias within party politics and questioned the credibility of parties that publicly endorse gender equality while ignoring it in practice. They stressed that the five per cent benchmark itself is insufficient and argued that the continued failure to meet even this low bar erodes public trust in political commitments and reform pledges.

The forum called for immediate accountability, demanding that political parties explain their failure before the public and that the Election Commission take a more assertive role in addressing violations of women’s political rights.