The number of women who contested this year’s general elections has increased says Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem.

Saneem says in 2014, eight women including the speaker of the house were part of the parliament but this year, ten females will be in parliament.

When compared to 2014 election, 44 women participated in the election which was 18% of all the candidates who contested the election.

This year 56 women contested the election, making up 245 of the total number of candidates.

”The evolution of democracy in Fiji is becoming more and more interesting. The number of women contesting the election has increased, the number of women in parliament has increased to now at least one fifth relatively of the total number of members in parliament which is women. This will continue to grow as more and more women contest the election due to the access that they have.”

Five women from FijiFirst, four from Social Democratic Liberal Party and one from National Federation Party will be part of the parliament this year.