Roundup: The Challenge to women's participation in mainstream politics in Ghana

Until quite recently in Ghana, women make up less than 11 percent of Ghana's 275-memeber parliament and hold only about 23 percent of ministerial positions.

The Northern Regional Office of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has expressed fears that women's representation in the Tamale Metropolis and Sagnarigu District will continue to remain poor as a result of negative practices and perceptions against women.

It said some cultural practices, inferiority complex, and religious impediments were some problems that affected women's participation in the District Level Elections in the Sagnarigu District and the Tamale Metropolis.

Alhaji Abdul-Razak Saani, Northern Regional Director of the NCCE, expressed the fears in Tamale early this year when he disseminated findings of a research conducted by the Northern Regional Office of the NCCE on the "District Assembly System and Gender in the Tamale Township: Implications for the Local Elections."

Ghana's Foreign Affairs Minster Hannah Tetteh has described women in parliament as an "endangered species" because their voices hardly affect discourse in the legislature, thereby compromising the quality of legislation passed.

The minister, who was speaking at a forum organized by ABANTU for Development, an NGO, at Dodowa in Greater Accra, cited the delay in the passage of women-related bills as a sign that male parliamentarians were not interested in the welfare of women.

Consequently, many gender advocates of her ilk are pushing for more women to be elected into parliament this year hence their determination to build the capacities of women contesting in the December 7 general election.

This, they claim, remains the best alternative to increasing women's presence in political decision-making positions at both the local and national levels to strengthen the country's democratic dispensation.

The Women's Organizer of the opposition New Patriotic Party, Otiko Afisah Djaba, has similarly called for increased support for women's representation in local assembly elections.

Djaba, in a statement copied local media recently, said women leaders in Ghanaian politics "are endangered species", pointing out that there was "abysmally low" representation in Parliament.

To change this situation, a capacity-building workshop was organized by ABANTU for Development, a non-governmental organization, in collaboration with ActionAid Ghana, in Accra, for 30 female parliamentary aspirants from the Greater Accra, Central, Brong-Ahafo and Western Regions.

A Commissioner of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Paulina Adobea Dadzawa, who walked the female aspirants through "Ghana's Electoral System and Women's Participation in Elections", called on them to be abreast of the country's electoral laws.

She pointed out that the concerns of women on the need to increase their participation could only be addressed at the party level.

She therefore called on the aspirants to work at ensuring that their political parties created favorable and enabling environment where more women would be at the helm of affairs.

However, Ghana's politics is just too demanding as revealed by previous elections at both party and national levels where delegates make excessive demands of both cash and material things from candidates to influence their voting pattern.

In spite of these factors, some women are making their presence strongly felt in national politics.

It is the expectation of many political observers that this year's general election will see more women elected as members of parliament in their constituencies and grow their numbers with the years. Endit