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Charity Binka
The UN Decade for Women (1975-85) has undoubtedly pushed the concerns of women in Africa to the centre stage and strengthened their resolve to be heard and seen. The UN Conference in China gave further boost to this quest. The African delegation at the meeting left a strong and positive impression because of their unity of purpose and ability to negotiate and articulate their needs. It was clear from proceedings in Beijing that African women were fully aware of their need to be part of decision-making and how to get there in theory. What was not obvious however was whether on their own they could push to get to the top in their individual countries.
Elections in a number of African countries just a year after the much-acclaimed Beijing Conference provided a good opportunity for women to test their newly acquired strength. Ghana was one such country and the women of Ghana were not ready to let the chance slip by in the December 1996 elections. Judging from the number of workshops held after the Conference to encourage women to offer themselves for election, no one was in doubt that the women were serious. But at the close of registration, only 57 women, out of 780 parliamentary candidates, had filed papers to contest, a situation the National Electoral Commissioner described as starting from a position of "powerlessness".
The challenge at this stage then was no longer to encourage more women to offer themselves for election, but how to get at least 50 of female candidates elected into Parliament. It was to meet this urgent need that four funding agencies came together to sponsor two workshops to equip the aspiring female parliamentarians with the necessary skills to campaign effectively and get elected. The specific objectives of the workshops could be summarised as: how to campaign to get elected, to identify the main gender issues affecting women in Ghana and to gain an understanding of and to deal with obstacles to women's participation in public life at all levels.
The records so far have shown clearly that women in Ghana are not active participants in decision-making. Of the 103 members of the Parliament of the First Republic (1960-65), there was no woman. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the then President of Ghana, fully aware of the contributions of women to the independence struggles, was compelled to appoint 10 women into Parliament to fill the great vacuum created by their absence. The coup in 1966 robbed these women of making a difference in the style of politicking in parliament. Out of the 140 members of the Second Republic (1972-74), only two were women. And the Third Republic (1979-81) could boast of only five women for the same number of parliamentarians - a mere increase of three. This was in spite of the elections being held just three years after the declaration of the UN Decade for Women that sought to draw attention to the need for equal opportunities for women to accelerate development.
Many were those who thought that the long military rule coupled with the activities of the 31st December Women's Movement, then an organ of the "revolution", had sufficiently "empowered" women to take Parliament by storm when the ban on party politics was lifted in 1992. Women who felt suppressed or marginalised by the revolution also saw it as a chance to be part of decision-making after 11 long years of military rule. But their hopes were dashed. Only 16 women got elected into Parliament, out of 200 members. But that was not surprising given the fact that only 23 women offered themselves for election in the first place. Optimists like me soon found out that whether under military rule or democracy, women's subordinate position remains the same in Ghana.
Women do more to keep political parties going than just singing, yet it is the demeaning of their roles that has kept them away from decision making positions. The first Ghanaian woman to contest her party's 1996 primaries as a presidential candidate was seen as having gone "crazy" even by women. But she was able to beat at least two male contestants out of six. So strong was her determination that after her defeat she went ahead to contest the parliamentary elections. Judging from the open hostility towards her at the workshop, it was clear she stood no chance at the polls.
This brings us back to workshop. At the end of the four-day workshop, both organisers and participants were left in no doubt that it was a worthwhile venture. If for nothing else, one could give credit to the fact that it was a bold attempt to get women politicians from different political divides together for training and to discuss common problems that women share regardless of class or status. The elections came and only 18 women got into Parliament out of 57. Even with the increase of two, the performance was far below that of 1992 when 16 out of 23 were elected. What went wrong? Did the workshop not do the trick?
The workshop had its shortfalls all right, but no one expected it to provide all the answers to women's poor participation in politics. The participants were however unanimous in their decision that the workshop was very useful to them. No one however paid much attention to their cry that they needed financial assistance - which to me was the crux of the matter. The same funding agencies that spent thousands of dollars on women to go to the Beijing Conference, which made women and decision-making a critical area of concern, are not ready to part with a few cedis (1) for women to campaign.
As I sat glued to the radio monitoring results from the radio newsroom, I kept guessing the number of female candidates who were going to make it to Parliament. I put the number at 40. As many as 49.5% of the registered voters were women and I expected all of them to vote for women. The disappointment could be imagined when at the close of count, not even 20 could make it. I went to town to find the answers for such an abysmal performance but got none. But I did not have to wait for long.
A month after the elections one of the defeated female candidates from a rural area visited me at my work place and we talked about the results. According to her, it is one thing being taught the theories about how to win an election and another thing being able to win. She put it this way:
"In the field things are different. Money makes all the difference. If you don't have money, forget it. Because I do not have money, I couldn't employ polling assistants to man all the polling stations in my constituency. On the day of voting, I was not even allowed into the counting centre. A more powerful candidate made sure I was kept out. Nobody would even listen to my complaints. Let me tell you this, politics is about money and money gives power to people to do whatever they like, through fair or foul means." As I pondered over her words, she smiled and assured me that she has not given up yet. She has learnt her lessons and would do her homework properly for the next elections in the year 2000.
It has long been argued that marriage, reproductive roles, illiteracy and male dominance of politics, among others, have prevented women from being in active politics and public life. But in the case of the 57 women, these were not their problems. With the exception of one who was in her late 30s, the others were in their 40s and early 50s or even 60s with grown up children. There were divorcees; singles as well as widows to whom marriage could not be a limiting factor. Those married were there with their husbands' approval. Many were graduate, or at least could communicate in English (after all there are regional party chairmen who are stark illiterates but are there because they are rich. The irony is that most highly educated women in Ghana rather shy away from politics which they regard as dirty). These women in no way felt intimidated by men, otherwise those of them who were rejected by their parties would not have had the courage to contest as independent candidates.
Other hurdles notwithstanding, finance seems to be the most serious challenge to the few women who are willing to go into politics in Ghana. And it is only when these women politicians are supported through special funds to get into Parliament regardless their political beliefs that feminists could seriously talk of a critical mass of women in Parliament to push for gender issues.
There is now a global consensus that women should play a more active, more direct and more visible role in decision-making. This clearly is the challenge of the 21st century, a challenge that would have to be taken up by all concerned. For this to happen in Ghana, gender specialists and experts should in addition to workshops, take a step further by getting financial support for women to get involved in active politics to give real meaning to what they preach. The elections in 2000 will certainly provide the testing ground for this.
(1) Cedi is the Ghanaian currency.
Charity Binka is Ghanaian, editor and head of Women's Desk at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation Radio Newsroom. She is member of the Association of Women in the Media and vice president of "Women in Broadcasting".