Representation of women in political leadership; NDC asked to fulfill promise
WiLDAF Ghana, a women’s right advocacy group, has called on the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to fulfill its promise of 40 per cent representation of women in political leadership.
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This, it said, could be done by reserving 110 seats, representing 40 per cent of the 275 constituencies, for only women to contest to be in parliament.
In a letter written to the National Chairman of the NDC and signed by Ms Melody Darkey, acting National Programme Coordinator, WiLDAF, the advocacy group also called on all political parties to work with the Electoral Commission (EC) to allocate 30 per cent of parliamentary constituencies to only women from all political parties to contest.
It said, “As you start your discussions on the modalities for conducting your primaries, we wish, by the platform of this letter, to remind you (political parties) of your statements of commitment (both oral and written) made on various political and civil society platforms and in your manifestos in the lead-up to the 2012 general election to put in measures to increase the representation of women in your party structures and other political decision making positions, including Parliament.
It also called on all political parties to adopt a policy to wave totally or reduce by minimum of 50 per cent the filing fees for contesting the parliamentary primaries for women.
WiLDAF also called on political parties to make provisions for financial assistance to female candidates contesting on their tickets during the 2016 general election.
The group also proposed some measures that could be adopted to increase the participation and representation of women in the political process.
It said though “we applaud the Affirmative Action policies adopted by most political parties in the lead up to the 2012 general election, which, among other factors, contributed to some marginal increase in the number of women who entered Parliament, when this marginal increase in the number of women in the 2013-2016 Parliament is analysed within the context of the total number of seats (that is 30 women out of a total of 275 seats) or 10.9 per cent women’s representation is still very low compared with men”.
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Again, it said in terms of political appointments, women formed only 19.4 per cent of ministers (18 out of the 93 Substantive Ministers and Deputy Ministers).
It added that only 412 women were elected out of the 6,093 District Assembly Members elected in 2010 saying that these figures fell way below the critical mass that women need to be able to have greater capacity to contribute to the development discourse and to make meaningful impact in the lives of women and children in the country.
“Indeed it has become apparent from the hints we are picking from the political environment that even the seats of the current 30 women in parliament are under serious threat from mostly male aspirants,” it said.
WiLDAF is therefore of the view that some bold and urgent unconventional steps were taken by political parties to sustain the momentum by first of all retaining the number of seats currently being held by women and secondly putting in measures to increase the number of women in the 2017-2020 parliament over the current 2013-2016 figures.