The Minister of Communications who doubles as Member of Parliament for Ablekuma West, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has said women should be allowed to contest other women in elections.
According to her, this will ensure that parliament has an equal representation of men and women as only 40 female MPs are currently serving in the house despite having 50/51 percent females making up the total population in the country.
“…In 2012 we started by trying the affirmative action initiative of the NPP which advocated that women should be allowed to contest women, not that there will be no contest but if we allow women to contest women across both sides of the political divide no matter who wins that seat it will still be a woman representing that constituency.
“I think we need to revisit such initiatives. We’ve also spoken about the parties themselves, now we are entering the primaries season. I think we have also left it too late, to start this conversation about what we can do to increase the levels of female participation in our governance.
She said there is a need for there to be an increase in the levels of female participation in the country’s governance.
“…we are pushing and facing a lot of resistance but it shouldn’t be a fight left to the women alone then it is seen as being a self-serving venture, the political parties should recognise that women are an indispensable part of the governance.
“… if you look at the history of our parliament, we are still hovering around 10 per cent female participation in the house, I think the highest number we got is the current number of 40 female MPs in parliament as we continue to celebrate international women’s day, it is incumbent on us to also look back and see whether we can do things differently to ensure that just as we have 50/51 per cent females making up our population, the number of women who represented their gender, the house should look like Ghana in terms of the number of women and men.” The minister added.
She added that Parliament should look like how Ghana does where there is almost equal representation of men and women in the country’s population.
Source: Ghana Web
