BY MARTYN NAMORONG
The Namorong Report
THE LEGISLATIVE CHANGES needed to enable the creation of women’s seats have hit a snag. Prime Minister Peter O’Neill snubbed a meeting hosted recently in Port Moresby by activist women.
Dame Carol Kidu, the only female MP in the current Parliament was the only MP present at the meeting.
Once I met a representative of the National Council of women and we had a chat about the creation of reserved seats.
I asked her if any study had ever been done to establish why women don’t vote for women or men don’t vote for women for that matter. No one has objectively defined the impediments to women in being elected into Parliament.
With this lack of clarity about the election of female representatives, pundits come up with various ideas. The most common being the Big Men mentality, lack of financial resources, vote rigging, and the status of women in society.
The problem with speculating is that there is no dominant culture or society in PNG such that what one observes in one part of the country may be totally irrelevant elsewhere.
What I find interesting though is that the current push for reserved seats is actually coming from women who may be referred to as petty bourgeoisie. For example, Janet Sape is a pretty empowered woman who is successful in running her own businesses.
Various other women who support this push for reserved seats are also successful career women. What this does say is that women can be successful in PNG under current circumstances so why aren’t they doing so well in Politics.
There are many men out there who are therefore very cynical of the moves to create reserved seats. They see this as just another power grab by elite women.
It is hardly surprising from a historical point of view that the bourgeoisie would be seeking political power and that is the perception amongst some observers.
How does one then bring into the debate the argument of Affirmative Action? The fact that the democratic process has failed to produce fair representation by the female population demands such action as the creation of reserved seats.
Note here that it is about representation of electors by women and not the representation of women, as in a democracy, women may choose to have a man represent them. It isn’t so much about women having a voice in Parliament as it is about having female voices in Parliament.
The argument for Fair Representation by Women has been lost in the debate largely because the proponents of this electoral reform have failed to articulate the issue better.
I’ll leave you with images of women at Hanuabada village in Port Moresby. While the petty bourgeoisie women were discussing politics on Sunday, the women at Hanuabada went about their daily routines.
Source: The Namorong Report
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