Lobby group happy at number of female candidates in Guernsey's election

Friday, 16 May 2025 11:30

33% of the 82 candidates standing are women which represents a steady increase across the past two decades.

Women in Public life supports island women to attain public office and to inspire more stand for deputy and other positions.

Its chair, Shelaine Green, says the number of female candidates for the June 25 election is positive:

"Yes we're very happy because it's actually gone up 9%. Last time 24% were women, and this time it's 33% women, so it's gone up a lot."

"It was 28 last time and it's 27 this time. But last time there was a huge number of candidates, 119, so the number of women has stayed the same, but the total number of candidates has gone down, so the proportion of women has gone up."

Shelaine has looked at the statistics and female representation has steadily increased since the year 2000:

"It's 33% women this year, it was 24% women in 2020 and 2016 and 19% in 2008."

She says women can give a lot to public life.

"It's not just about their skills and their professional capacity, it's also about their life experience."

The number of candidates has dropped this year to 82 but Shelaine sees this as a natural settling after the first island-wide poll:

"That actually takes us to a kind of normal rate for Guernsey. When we did district and parish elections we normally did have 78, 81 or 88, that was the kind of normal number, so it was 2020 that was the exceptional time."