2015 Elections: Building a Women’s Constituency across Party Lines

 Challenging the Myth that “Women are their own worst Enemies”

Have you ever found yourself using the phrase “Women are their own worst enemies”? If Yes, PLEASE, STOP!!! As simple as the phrase may seem, such language is divisive. It undermines women’s solidarity, and what is more, IT IS A MYTH. It is simply not true, especially when it comes to women in politics.

Want proof that it is a myth? Let’s take a look at the Scorecard of Men in politics. Here are examples of unjust and aggressive actions that men mete out to their fellow men in politics, yet we don’t hear it said that “men are their own worst enemies”: Imposition of candidates; Rigging and Stealing of opponent’s mandate (so many elections into Governorship, National and State Assembly Positions have been upturned because some man stole the mandate of a fellow man); Hiring and use of thugs; Smashing of skulls with the Mace and other objects; Causing of bodily harm with machetes; Violence during political campaigns and rallies; Assassinations of political opponents; House arrests; Orchestrated impeachments and kidnappings.

Women are not guilty of any of these atrocities against their fellow women! So, why spread the myth? It’s high time we began to deconstruct the language of division and male domination.

Women Politicians and Grassroots Women Leaders from both the APC and PDP Political Parties in Ekiti and Osun, at a recent training, successfully debunked the myth that women cannot work together when they collaborated over a 5-Day period to draw up strategies for increasing the number of women who vie for Leadership Positions in political party structures and public offices.

At the training, which was organized by Community Life Project (CLP) in Ekiti, the women brainstormed intensely and developed campaign and advocacy plans for enhancing women’s participation in politics across party lines. They jointly came up with a Communiqué in which they demanded that: 

• a minimum of 35% of the candidates to be fielded by political parties in the 2015 Elections should be women; 
• some key positions within political party structures - such as Party Secretary, Treasurer, PRO, Organising Secretary - should be exclusively reserved for women, to be contested by only female candidates.
• INEC and top Leaders of political parties should do more to work together to ensure that the 2015 elections are fair, inclusive, free of violence and intimidation in order to mitigate the barriers to women’s effective participation.

Why Support Women’s Leadership?

The 62 Women Politicians and 53 Grassroots Women Leaders, who participated in the training, gave the following reasons why women should be supported to occupy Key Leadership Positions in governance and political parties:

• Women are good resource managers.
• Women understand better the needs and priorities of the weak and vulnerable members of society:

o   Women are more empathic

o   Women are more sensitive

oWomen are more compassionate

• Women are more honest in government.
• Where women are leaders of government, there is less corruption
• Women are good community organisers.
• Women are better at multi-tasking.
• Women are peace builders.
• Women have a more inclusive leadership style.