The 2015 Bougainville election was a milestone for women’s political representation. The largest-ever cohort of women candidates contested; one candidate, Josephine Getsi in Peit  constituency, became the first women elected to the House of Representatives in an open seat. She joins the three women members elected in reserved seats in a House that now has 10 per cent women’s representation, although the number of women in Cabinet remains the same as in previous terms, at one. For many women candidates, however, the results of the election were disappointing, mirroring recent elections elsewhere in Melanesia, which has one of the lowest rates of women’s political representation in the world.