Choibalsan, Mongolia– When Narangerel, an elected soum (local) councilor since 2008,  first asked her local party leader if she would be considered as an aimag (provincial) candidate in Mongolia’s upcoming 2012 elections, she was told no as it would be too risky for her to run for higher office.

“More women are expected to run in the next elections due to the work of local organizations educating voters on the value of women as elected leaders, but the political parties still only give full support and opportunities to men,” stated one of only two women members currently serving on Choibalsan’s city assembly in Dornod province.

Women in Mongolia, like Narangerel, face daunting figures as elected representatives going into the 2012 elections.  Currently, of the 76 members elected to Mongolia’s national parliament, only three are women; and out of 36 ministerial positions, just four are women.  At the soum and aimag levels, women see higher numbers of representation on local councils, yet leadership at these levels still remain male-dominated with no women serving among the 21 aimag governors and only 56 women out of the 329 soum governors.

In advance of local and parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2012, the Mongolian civil society group, Women for Social Progress (WSP) is conducting five-day trainings to increase women’s political participation in all levels of government.  The trainings, which are supported through a sub-grant from the Women’s Democracy Network (WDN), will be held for women in Dornod and Zavkhan provinces and the capital Ulaanbaatar. 

In Dornod, nine out of the 25 soum councilors are women.  In August, all nine attended the WSP training, including Narangerel, a director at a local bank who originally entered politics to honor her late husband who was involved in the democratic movement of Mongolia in the early 1990s.  She attended WSP’s training to increase her knowledge on effective campaign management, media plans, get-out-the-vote efforts and electoral processes.

“There is discouragement from our party leaders to run for higher elected office, but I have decided to do it anyway and this training will help me to succeed,” said Narangerel.

Several of the program participants noted the importance of coming together regardless of political affiliation to meet fellow candidates and campaign managers while learning how to put together advanced campaign plans, including calculating voting patterns based off of the 2008 election results.

“I am gaining self confidence in my abilities as a candidate and as a representative of my community,” said soum councilor Oyunardene.

Concurrent to its trainings, WSP is also conducting public awareness campaigns through interviews on local television stations and posters supporting women running for office.  This media effort is designed to keep the conversation of women’s participation in government ongoing and prominent when campaign season begins.

In Dornod, Narangerel says that she will knock on every door and bring her daughters with her as she campaigns, “We are strong; we feel like we can win.”

WDN is currently supporting three organizations in Albania, Kenya and Mongolia with subgrants to conduct activities focused on increasing the participation of women in politics and civil society.