Women will form the majority in Rwanda’s national parliament, making it the first country in the world to have more female legislators than men.

According to the Independent, women have won around 56 percent of the seats in parliament after four days of peaceful elections.

Women will have at least 44 of the 80 total seats.

“The problems of women are understood much better, much better by women themselves,” one female voter said.

President Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front secured a majority in the elections — only the second since the 1994 genocide that killed 800,000 people there.

The Rwandan constitution provides a quota 24 seats to women, as well as three seats for representatives of youth and disabled people — but the Independent noted that additional seats won may reflect “disenchantment with the country’s male, genocide-era politicians.”

–Julia Hengst/Newsdesk.org

Sources:

“Women MP’s to the fore in healing of Rwanda”
The Independent, September 17, 2008