Advocacy to have a female vice presidential candidate for the flagbearers of the main political parties-New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) toward the December 7 general elections is intensifying as the moment draws close.
Two strong woman advocates, FIDA-Ghana and the Bretuo Tufohemaa of Aburi, Nana Akua Asamoabea I, have in separate statements made strong cases for why it must be a female running mate for the December elections.
Nana Asamoabea stated that Ghana must not miss this opportunity to select a woman to the position of a running mate and eventually a vice president since the girls and women need role models to inspire them to leadership.
“Women are best place to set the development agenda and their absence retards women’s progressive development,” she stated in a statement to support FIDA-Ghana call.
The Bretuo Tufohemaa of Aburi added that she supports the call for political parties to elect a women as running mates and those who have women as running mates to retain them, and further urged queen mothers in the country to stand up and rally support for women.
For the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA-Ghana), “Ghana has organised seven successful elections since 1992 yet women’s share of parliamentarians in all these elections has always been below the African average of 21 percent and far less than the UN recommended 40 percent minimum threshold. Even at the district level elections, Data from the Alliance for Women in the Media stated that females elected as assembly members are less than five (5) percent,” they stated in a press release.
It added that while so-called smaller parties like the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) have blazed the trail in ensuring that women are given greater political representation, the two main political parties have left much to be desired.
“The selection process of female candidates is through the political parties and until recently, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2020 also elected its first female running mate, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman. This leaves the incumbent New Patriotic Party, (NPP) trailing as it has yet to elect a female running mate,” the Federation stated.
“Any political party that shows little inclination to nominate women as running mates and support their female candidates, sends signals that they have a male-oriented party culture that is undemocratic and exclusive, favouring male participation.
“Such a culture ignores women’s rights to fully participate in politics. Additionally, any culture that asks female candidates to step down for more “successful” male candidates perceived by the leadership of political parties as a “safe” candidate over the female candidate contravenes the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Goal 5, which calls for gender equality,” the Federation argued.
