Elections

If Park Geun-Hye is elected South Korea's first-ever woman president on Wednesday, she will lead a country that is ranked below the likes of Suriname and the United Arab Emirates in gender equality.

South Korea's journey from war-torn poverty to Asia's fourth-largest economy has done little to break the male stranglehold on political and commercial power in what in many ways remains a very conservative nation.

Ghana’s next Parliament is set to have the highest number of female representation for the first time since the onset of the Fourth Republic.

This is because 28 out of the 133 women who contested the just-ended elections successfully sailed through.

The 133 women who contested the election marked a significant improvement over the 103 women who contested in the 2008 elections.
The 2008 elections produced 20 female Member of Parliament (MPs).

One Hundred and thirty three women are running in 27 out of the 275 constituencies in Ghana’s Parliamentary race this year. This number is relatively small compared to their male counterparts who number up to one thousand three hundred and thirty two. But to some observers and gender advocates, this number, as low as it appears, represents a 30 percent improvement on previous figures.

In the elections sprinkled across Asia from Japan to Indonesia to Sri Lanka this year, perhaps the most intriguing candidate is Park Geun-Hye, who seeks to be the first woman elected president of South Korea.

As she has risen in prominence over the last decade, Ms. Park, 60, has joined an elite sisterhood of Asian women who have gotten their starts on the road to political power as the daughters or widows of well-known men. Most of the women were educated in Western universities either at home or in Europe or the U.S.

In order to discuss the role and responsibilities of the government, political parties, media, lawyers and civil society in ensuring women’s right to vote in coming general elections, Aurat Foundation organised a focussed group discussion Wednesday.

The three women sit around a table tackling their breakfast at a five-star city hotel. One in a black T-Shirt, a red skirt, white rubber shoes and with her hair held up in a bun by a red cloth.

The second sits in a black skirt and red T-Shirt and the third in a grey skirt suit and a red T-Shirt. Their T-Shirts read the same, 'use my ballot not my body' but that is not the only thing they have in common. All three are rape victims or as they prefer to be called, rape survivors; two of them having been raped in the violence the followed the last general elections.

Ms Darling Norgbey, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) has appealed to women across the country to use their endearing attributes to help diffuse simmering political tensions that could develop into full blown conflicts.

Ms Norgbey, who is President of Police Ladies Association (POLAS), Volta Region, was addressing members of the Association and other security services ladies after a march on Saturday through the Ho Township to herald peaceful elections in the region.