Women not a political priority [Archives:2006/982/Local News]
SANA'A, Sept. 16 ) Women are still trying to find a place in Wednesday's election.
“Generally speaking, the attitude of all political parties towards the political contribution of the woman is extremely weak,” said Huria Mashoor, the vice-president of the national committee of the woman.
Mashoor was speaking at an eleventh hour symposium hosted by the Yemen Institute for the Development of Democracy.
The president of the institute agreed with Mashoor.
“Political parties dare not to nominate a female in order not to fail,” said Raja'a Ali Mokbil. “But at least GPC is much better than opposition parties as the female candidates in GPC are about 34, while Islah party has no female candidates for the local councils”,
However, Mona Safwan, a journalist in Al-Wahda newspaper said GPC let down the woman more than the opposition Islah party.
“GPC promised the woman more seats in the local councils but they broke its promise, while Islah party didn't promise anything. Add to that, Islah party has a female candidate for the local council, who is Dr. Fain, a doctor of psychology in Sana'a University,” said Safwan.
Dr. Adel Al-Shibami, the spokesman and the chief of the studies and research department at the Future movement said, “Before suggesting any solution, we conducted research to come to grips with woman's position and the outcomes of our research indicate woman's absence in economic, political and cultural fields make her out of her depth so that being a decision-maker is a tall order for her.”
At the end of the symposium, Mr. Ahmed Al-Sofi, secretary-general of YIID distributed a result of a survey which has been made to know people's opinion of who is the most popular presidential candidate?
He said the sample consists of 2500 people in Sana'a, Aden, Taiz, Ibb and Al-Mahweet and it shows a 78.5 percent approval rating for Ali Abdullah Saleh, 12 percent for Faisal bin Shamlan, 8 percent for Fathi Al-Azab and below one percent for each Ahmed Al-Majidi and Abdo Sa'eed.
——
[archive-e:982-v:14-y:2006-d:2006-09-18-p:ln]
