(winning elections in Ghana) part 1.
Recently, women advocates have come out to challenge the choice of the people as to who they want to represent them in parliament. They keep reminding us of the huge number of women that contested and the few that emerged victorious. Yes, some must win and some must loose because it is an election,but did they play their cards well?
Out of the 275 constituencies, about 102 was contested by 133 women. But only 28 was won leaving the rest 247 for the men to take. Does that mean the rest 105 women were not competent enough to be in parliament? No, but it was the people's choice. And if it is the people's choice, why did they not win? Simply because they do not have the popularity needed,be it political and personal.
Even though, despite the mentality that, it is only the NPP and NDC that can take you to parliament, most of the women contested on the ticket of the 'smaller parties' while some went independent . Is it still not obvious that one can't win elections aside joining the NDC and NPP after the elections? Those 105 women still have questions to answer and they also have a lot to do and think about.
Out of the 28 new women parliamentarians, 22 had their seats safely based on the popularity of both the political party and personality in the constituency. The other 6 namely
1. Irene Naa Torshie Addo
2. Elizabeth Sackey
3. Esther Obeng Dapaa
4. Queenstar Pokua Sawyerr
5. Georgina Nkrumah and
6. Dr. Hannah Bissiw
had to work extra hard to gain their seats in parliament and will solely be judged accordingly come 2016. They won their contenders mostly men by just a slight margin.
AKPAH PRINCE akpahprince@ymail.com
