25% Women's Quota in Local Government Elections

A 2016 amendment to Sri Lanka's Local Authorities Elections Ordinance required parties to nominate at least 25% women candidates for local council elections, following decades in which women held under 2% of local council seats, one of the lowest rates in South Asia.

The quota is split across a mixed ward-candidate list (minimum 10% women) and a proportional additional-members list (minimum 50% women), enforced by the Election Commission of Sri Lanka; it was first applied in the February 2018 local elections.

Women's local-council representation rose from under 2% pre-reform to roughly 23% after the 2018 elections, with nearly 2,000 women elected -- described by UN Women and IFES as one of the largest single-election jumps in women's local representation recorded globally. A 2025 review found compliance had since weakened: 49 local authorities elected no women at all (versus 16 in 2018), and UN Women put the national women's seat share at roughly 11% by 2025, attributed to an exemption clause (Section 65AA) that lets some parties sidestep the quota.

The quota drove a large initial gain in women's representation, but legal loopholes have allowed uneven compliance since, and later data suggest some erosion of the 2018 gains.