Encouraging female candidates in the 2012 elections
23 June 2012
MIKE WIGHTMAN
ENGAGE – THE AUSAID BLOG
IN WHAT MIGHT BE a world record, 3,435 candidates will contest 111 parliamentary seats in the Papua New Guinea elections that start today.
To say there is a paucity of female representation in PNG’s parliament is a rather massive understatement. There is just one woman in parliament, Dame Carol Kidu, who is Leader of the Opposition, and she is retiring from politics.
In fact, there have only been three other women elected since independence— Dame Josephine Abaijah, Dame Nahau Runi and Waliata Clowes. Not surprisingly PNG is ranked 119 out of 121 countries on female political participation in parliament.
In the 2007 elections there were 2,759 candidates, of which 103 were women. And while Dame Carol was the only woman who won a seat, 2007 was the first time in history where all twenty PNG provinces had women contesting elections.
A report on the 2007 elections showed women candidates are generally more focused on social welfare, family, good governance and rights issues and policies. The report also indicated that women candidates display good leadership and decision making qualities—qualities desperately needed in PNG’s leaders.
Dr Alphonse Gelu from PNG’s National Research Institute recently gave another rather compelling reason to vote women into parliament. “Many ‘Big Men’ don’t do any work, because they don’t have to”, he told a gathering in Port Moresby a few weeks ago that.
Whether this statement was accurate or not, the feeling that PNG is suffering from poor leadership is pervasive in the country’s newspapers, TV bulletins, blogs and airwaves.
This year there are 676 more candidates than in 2007, but only 32 of this additional number are women. It’s not surprising that women in PNG don’t contest elections in proportion to their overall numbers.
In PNG, compared to male candidates, female candidates have far more limited access to funding to run their campaigns. Women have difficulty attracting good campaign staff, partly because, as history shows, they have almost zero chances of being elected to a position where they can actually pay their staff. All this conspires to deny women a fair go, and there’s a good chance this will happen again in 2012.
Limited preferential voting, introduced in the 2007 election, provided another avenue for cashed-up candidates to improve their chances of election, according to Dr Gelu, by the sale of preferences. Preference one is K50, preference two is K30 and preference K3-10.
Undeterred, Loujaya Toni is running for the Lae Open seat in the upcoming general elections in June. Loujaya told me why she was running. “I come from outside Lae and in my village people have to walk for kilometres to get water and there is no electricity. It’s not good enough and I want to change it. I am a family relation of the sitting member, and I am running against him because I feel so strongly about these issues.”
Last month Loujaya attended training designed specifically for women on how to develop an election campaign strategy. She said the training had given her a sense of self-belief and enabled her to understand the mechanics of running the election race.
The training was funded through AusAID and delivered by the Centre for Democratic Institutions at the Australian National University in partnership with PNG’s Office for the Development of Women.
It equipped women candidates with skills and information about campaign planning and logistics, including the management of finances and support teams, public speaking and electoral rules.
In the 2012 elections, 135 women will run for office. While it is clear that women’s participation in the electoral process is still limited in PNG, we hope that through assistance from partners such as Australia and courageous women like Loujaya, more women will be inspired and empowered to get involved.
Mike Wightman is first secretary, public affairs, AusAID, Papua New Guinea
Good to hear about this effort by AusAID, and ANU and PNG's Office for the Development of Women, to help the women of PNG to become candidates for the election to parliament.
Let us hope that some are successful.
Posted by: Mrs Barbara Short | 23 June 2012 at 06:03 AM