By IPS Correspondents
COTONOU, May 16 2007 (IPS)

Out of 250 candidates, just a handful triumphed: not an impressive track record by any measure. So, Benin&#39s women are already looking ahead to the next election.

The hope is that women will make a better showing in local and municipal polls set for December than they did in the Mar. 31 legislative vote, which saw just under three percent of female aspirants – seven candidates – make it to the West African nation&#39s 83-seat parliament. There were six women representatives in the previous legislature.

In all, some 2,000 people contested the March ballot.

The &#39Group of NGOs, Prominent Persons and Institutions for a Strong Participation of Women in Decision Making&#39 (Groupe des ONG, personnalités et institutions pour une forte implication des femmes dans les prises de decisions; GPIFED) is aiming to help women get elected to councils in 20 of Benin&#39s 77 districts.

Budgetary constraints prevent a broader implementation of this programme, financed by the Swiss with about 262,000 dollars, and in operation since 2002. To date, it has enabled 44 women to get elected in 14 districts.

Certain NGOs have also taken the step of providing women councilors with training to ensure that they manage districts well throughout their term in office (2002 to 2007).

New approaches are also needed to give women a stronger voice in politics, she believes, such as reserving a quota of seats for female representatives.

"We must now change strategy, as awareness raising and advocacy have not delivered the expected results," notes Attikpa, who finds it inconceivable that after almost two decades of multiparty politics, just 8.4 percent of legislators are women. Benin started a process of democratic reform in 1990 after 17 years of harsh Marxist-Leninist rule under Mathieu Kerekou.

Marie-Elise Gbèdo, the first woman to contest presidential elections in the West African country – in 2001 – also favours quotas, as does civil society activist and literature professor Roger Gbégnonvi.

He says women are currently fighting an unequal battle when it comes to elections, as they do not have access to the financial resources available to men. "Elections are bought, and it will be like this for a long time still," notes Gbégnonvi, in reference to the way in which would-be parliamentarians often find themselves giving out bags of sugar, cement, pieces of sheet iron and even cash to voters. Gbèdo has also pointed to insufficient funding as being among the main causes of the failure of women during elections.

Gbégnonvi notes further that the submissiveness of many women to their husbands stands in the way of them taking up decision-making posts.

But, others have doubts about a quota system. Amissétou Affo-Djobo, one of the seven newly-elected female legislators and the only woman in cabinet, has said she will not work for a law to this effect at present.

"Men have not made use of any quotas to get where they are," notes Affo-Djobo, who represents the ruling Cauris Forces for an Emerging Benin (Forces cauris pour un Bénin emergent). (Cauris, or cowry shells, were formerly used as money in parts of Africa.)

Instead, the experience and intellect of women should pave the way for them getting better positions on the lists of candidates for polls, she argues.

Beninese legislators are elected under a system of proportional representation, which allocates seats to parties according to their share of the vote. Parties have lists of candidates to which these seats are given – and the higher a candidate&#39s position on the list, the more chance there is of them reaching parliament.

However, local and municipal polls allow independent candidates, opening the door to greater women&#39s representation – and motivating GPIFED to get women elected at grass roots level.

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