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| Sunday, 2 May 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Women and elections : Wayamba, all-woman lists and all that ... by Lasanda Kurukulasuriya The results of the Wayamba Provincial Council elections concluded last week represent a small but significant victory for women in the political arena. The main contenders, the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and United National Party (UNP) between them fielded a mere five women out of a total of 112 candidates for this election, and all five won. The UPFAs Indrani Dassanayake in fact topped the list in Puttalam district with the highest number of preferential votes (32,508).
The Wayamba results need to be seen in the context of the not-so-distant past PC election in 1999 in that province, where several women activists were subjected to the most horrifying incidents of sexual harassment and violence in our election history. At least three incidents were reported where women were stripped, beaten, threatened at gunpoint and dragged or forced to run along the road, by political thugs. All the more credit to this years women candidates for braving the hustings undeterred by these grim memories, and all the more shame to the political parties for doing so little to counter the negative climate and encourage greater participation of women. Violence is a key obstacle to women's participation in Sri Lankan politics. The other barrier is the reluctance of male-dominated party hierarchies to nominate women as candidates. Hopefully the Wayamba result will help reduce the prejudice against women candidates. The other significant development for women in the recent past was the participation of an all-women group in the Colombo district at the April 2 general election. Running under the banner of the National Peoples Party (NPP), the 23 women led by lawyer Sharmila Daluwatte won 1,273 votes. They came in sixth on a list of 28 parties and independent groups contesting Colombo, next in line to the veterans of the New Left Front who drew 2,037 votes. While they did not secure a single seat in parliament, their electoral debut surely represents a symbolic victory for women. For a group that emerged "out of the blue," with less than six weeks to campaign, it is creditable to have mustered over a thousand votes in Colombo. Daluwatte is anyway on record having said that the groups objective in participating was mainly to use the election platform to "create awareness about women's political and civil rights." Apart from four lawyers who are its main activists, the group includes five university students, five business women, an accountant, three housewives, other working women and a retired teacher. What is most interesting about this new womens group is their approach to strategy. Daluwatte from the outset declared that they would encourage women to participate in politics regardless of the party to which they belonged. If women faced difficulty in getting nominated, she said the NPP would give them nominations regardless of their party affiliations. This assertion, along with her appeal to women to vote for women, regardless of party, suggests a line of lateral thinking adopted in full knowledge of their unlikelihood of getting into parliament under the prevailing system of proportional representation. In appealing to women to vote for women, not necessarily for them, Daluwatte seems to "play" the party system that has proved unyielding to women's demands for greater representation. What she tried to do was to use the system to gain maximum exposure for her purpose. The manner in which the group was formed again indicates some fresh tactical thinking. The NPP whose party banner they used, is not a women's party. The NPP was formed in 1999, and in a previous election as well as this year (in Matale) it fielded both male and female candidates. However 22 women joined the NPP this year purely in order to form an all-women group to contest Colombo district at the April 2 election. Daluwatte was the only member of the group who was already a party member. By running as representatives of a political party rather than as independents the group secured certain benefits that to some extent offset the disadvantages they faced as newcomers. For instance it gave them one hour's air time on national radio and television, though they contested only two districts. This was considerable exposure for a small, relatively unknown entity, compared with the one and a half hours allocated to the main parties fielding hundreds of candidates and contesting 22 districts. Working under a party banner also exempted them from making a deposit of Rs.48,000 required of independent groups - a valuable saving in a game where money can make all the difference. The key issue in the manifesto of Daluwatte's group was granting voting rights to 800,000 women migrant workers in West Asia, mainly housemaids. They have correctly identified this as a bloc of votes comparable to (and probably larger than) the Ceylon Workers Congress in the estate sector, and potentially as powerful. They are also incisive in their perception that giving these women voting rights is the only way to compel authorities to better address their needs. These women who are among the country's top foreign exchange earners have long been at the receiving end of various forms of abuse, with the worst cases ending in horrific deaths. On the issue of bringing more women into the political process, they differ from the mainstream women's movement that demands a 30% quota for women in parliament. Here again their approach is pragmatic. They seek an amendment to the existing Local Government Elections Act, asking that its 40 per cent allocation for "youth" be redefined so that half would be women. That way a 20 per cent allocation would be achieved for a start, while 33 per cent would still be the ultimate goal. Introducing women-friendly legislation also figures prominently on their agenda. Daluwatte deplores the legal system as one that discriminates against women, and draws attention to the illegality of abortion, lack of awareness of women's health issues and increasing reports of rape, sexual harassment and teenage pregnancies. ("The law is there but society doesn't take it seriously.") The bold move of these women in asserting themselves as a group in today's volatile political climate has drawn mixed reactions from the mainstream women's movement. At least two longtime women activists remarked on their courage, and commended them for attempting what others in the mainstream only dreamed of realizing in the next decade or so ("We didn't have the guts to come forward"). There was also doubt expressed before the election as to whether the group would get enough votes to "make an impact." This was mentioned both by those who approved of Daluwatte's move as well and those who did not. It is unfortunate that some of the big guns in the women's movement have been hostile to Daluwatte's brave initiative, seeing her as an upstart in their midst, who's not toeing the line. Even if the act of contesting was premature, it showed an independence of spirit that senior activists should have found gratifying. Finally, their years of training effort are showing results. The recent provincial and parliamentary election results need to be appraised by women not so much in terms of numbers who participated, or votes or seats gained, which are negligible, but rather, in terms of their symbolic value. In a political context stacked so heavily against women, these small victories assume considerable moral significance. |
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