Nearly twice as many men as women standing in May elections in UK

Exclusive: women ‘massively underrepresented’ in next week’s local and devolved elections, campaigners say Women will be massively underrepresented on ballot papers across the UK next week, campaigners say, with research revealing that almost twice as many men as women are standing as candidates across the local, mayoral and devolved elections. Democracy campaigners say men of all political stripes are likely to dominate local government, with women’s views on issues from social care to bin collections sidelined by the huge gap between the numbers of male and female candidates. Across all elections taking place on 7 May, a third of candidates are women and two-thirds are men, with no party achieving gender parity, according to analysis by 50:50 Parliament and Democracy Club shared exclusively with the Guardian. In local elections in England, which account for the largest number of candidates out of all elections next Thursday, 34% of candidates are female and no party is fielding an equal number of men and women. In the six mayoral elections taking place, 18% of candidates are women; in the Senedd elections, the figure is 38%; and in the Scottish parliament elections it is 36%. Ref