Women express frustration at elections

Some women who had participated in primaries for the selection of candidates for parliamentary elections have expressed their frustrations at the impediments they had to encounter in order to go through such male dominated processes.
Sharing their personal experiences at the three-day workshop on “Political Parties Strategy for developing Female Candidates,” organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), they were of the view that if obstacles had not been put in their way their performance would have been better.
According to them the hurdles included limited finance, intimidation, religious and cultural beliefs, lack of support from other women, bias on the part of the Electoral Commission (EC) officials and the general belief that women should not be made leaders.
Ms Barbara Asamoah, who had stood on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Offinso Constituency for 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections, said during her campaign voters, especially females, made it clear to her that although she was the best candidate, they would prefer a male candidate because he (male candidate )could offer better support.
“I was shocked to hear from women groups that if they voted for me, they would not be able to ask for money from me or take me as their boyfriend. And that was the reason why they did not vote for me,” she said.
She also expressed worry that although there were a lot of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) offering support for women candidates, none of them came to her aid throughout the three elections she participated in.
She said although she did not want to impute political motive for such lack of support, she was of the view that the NGOs concentrated their actions in certain areas, thereby depriving some women of very vital support.
Ms Rhodalyn Ayarna who contested the Bawku Central seat on the ticket of the People’s National Convention (PNC) in the 2008 elections said there was an overwhelming support from the women for her, but they disclosed to her later that they had been warned by some elders not to vote for a female candidate.
She said surprisingly, some of the chiefs and elders visited her at night and told her that there was no way a woman could be allowed to lead Bawku Central in Parliament.
She also blamed electoral officers for her defeat, adding that they also associated themselves with the cultural and religious believe that women could not be leaders, and therefore gave her wrong days for all meetings, depriving her of the chance to go to Parliament.
Ms Ayarna was of the view that she would have been the best Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, especially in ensuring that there was peace, “because it was clear that the problem of the area was being fanned by leaders of some political parties”.
Mrs Gloria Ofori Buadu, who contested the New Patriotic Party (NPP) primary for Akyem-Abuakwa South slot, said she was surprised that women who were supposed to be her campaign managers abandoned her because they were of the view that she could not give them money like her male counterparts would do.
She said they told her that because she was seen as an educated person, most of the women felt that she was of a higher class and therefore could not support her cause.
Mrs Buadu noted that most of the women held the notion that they would be better off under a male MP, hence their unflinching support for male counterparts.
Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin of ABANTU for Development, responding to claims that the NGOs limited their support for some selected female candidates, urged the female candidates to try and market themselves because it was always difficult to locate all such women in the country.
Ms Ursula Owusu, a legal and gender consultant, said deliberate support, especially through legislation, had proved to be a great catalyst for increasing the number of women entering Parliament.
She said in 1957 when the then President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, realised that there was no woman in parliament, he passed the Representation of People’s Act (Women Members) in 1960 which allowed for the selection of 10 women into Parliament.
She described the move as the first ever affirmative action policy which introduced the quota system and this miraculously resulted in encouraging nine more women to contest competitive elections, winning to join their 10 counterparts selected through the affirmative action.
Ms Ursula gave the statistics of the female numbers in the Fourth Republican Parliament as 1992; 15, representing eight per cent; 1996, 19 females, representing nine per cent; 2000, 18, representing 9.5 per cent; 2004, 25 females, representing 10.9 per cent and 2008, 20 females, representing a reduction to 8.7 per cent.