Women Absence in Election Candidacy [Archives:2001/10/Focus]

Mohammad Al-Qadhi 
Email: [email protected] 
Yemen Times 
The statistics given by the Supreme Elections Committee(SEC) point out that the women participation in election and their role in leading the drive of political change is very low. The female candidates who run for the local elections were 25 among over 23, 000 male candidates competed for 7032 seats. Women observers refer this to some social and tribal reason as well as the actual fossilized attitude of political parties towards women’s role in running the local affairs of people despite the fact that their political programs stress the significance of women’s participation in the political life of the society plus the constitutional legislations which guarantee this right. However, the reality does not match the theory. Only two women won the 1993 parliamentary election representing the YSP. Another two women were nominated by the GPC in the 1997 parliamentary election which was boycotted by the YSP. Women are legally banned from running for presidential election as this of the 1999. 
People concerned with women rights express their concern about the low position of Yemeni women at the decision-making center in the post unification Yemen. 
Only 12 women ran for the local election at the governorates level against 2199 men candidates. Similarly, 108 women ran for the election at the districts level against 22065 men. 
The Woman National Committee view this as a result of the patriarchal tradition which still believe that it is okay for women to participate in voting but not in nominating themselves under the pretext that women go astray when taking over such demanding posts, neglecting their household concerns and duties. 
There is, actually, a very wide gap between the number of women as nominees and voters. The number of women who voted in the parliamentary as well as presidential elections is very high. The women registered at the voting lists of the two parliamentary elections of 1993 and 1997 are 1,262,549 out of 4,606,933 which is a good number. This figure of women soared up in the presidential election. There were 490624 female voters added to the voters’ lists against 970585 men. 
This statistics shows clearly that women are exploited by political parties in a bad way which think of them as voters rather than candidates, though some of them are qualified enough to play a role in the emerging democratic transition Yemen is going through if they are given a free room. 
Seventeen female candidates in the recent local election represented 11 political parties. The GPC presented female 25 candidates while the YSP nominated 17. The Social Green Party presented 9 women candidates. Islah did not nominate any of his female supporters. 
These figures clearly demonstrate that women are not taking over serious positions in the society and their voice at the power center is still unheard. In other words, women role in the political life of the society has to be promoted, particularly on the part of the political parties that claim to be liberal and progressive.
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