BURKINA FASO: Giving Political Parties a Legal Nudge

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Brahima Ouédraogo

OUAGADOUGOU, May 31 2007 (IPS) - Awareness raising alone hasn’t managed to bring about sufficient change…Perhaps quotas are now required. That’s the thinking behind a law that will be put before Burkina Faso’s parliament later this year, in an effort to increase the number of women in decision-making posts in the West African country’s government.

The quotas for female representation would concern high-level posts to which people are appointed, as well as elected positions.

At present, women occupy just 13 of the 111 seats in parliament – this after the number of female representatives fell by one during legislative polls held earlier this month.

Elections in Burkina Faso follow a system of proportional representation, meaning that parties win seats in proportion to the share of ballots cast for them. Candidates for seats are registered on party lists, with positions going to those with the highest ranking on these lists.

“If you leave political parties to do the positioning, you will not have women in the National Assembly,” says Ousséni Tamboura, president of the National Assembly Gender Caucus, which pioneered the legislation.

“I think that some legal requirements are needed at party level if we want to have women in the situation of being eligible for senior decision-making posts,” he adds. “They constitute half of the population…and it is completely just and democratic for women to be found at levels involving responsibility, so that decisions that are made take their interests into account.”

The gender caucus comprises 27 parliamentarians representing the full spectrum of political views; it has been in existence for almost two years, and was created to improve women’s participation in decision-making.

According to Mariam Sirima, co-ordinator of the Burkinabé Coalition of Women’s Rights (Coalition burkinabé des droits de la femme, CBDF), traditional views are hampering the advance of women in politics.

“Men continue to believe that politics is a man’s business,” she told IPS, noting that men had difficulty in accepting “a new role for women in public life”.

The CBDF is a coalition of 15 non-governmental organisations and associations, created in 2002 to protect and promote the rights and citizenship of women.

Notes Cécile Beloum, a member of the National Assembly Gender Caucus who was re-elected this month as a representative for the ruling Congress for Democracy and Progress (Congrès pour la démocratie et le progress, CDP), ” We will lobby…supportive men, and convince those who are still hesitating to give more place to women in decision-making bodies.”

With the National Assembly Gender Caucus, the CBDF lobbied no less than 85 political parties to ensure that women were well placed on candidate lists for the May 6 parliamentary vote.

“The heads of political parties supported our approach and promises were made to give women good positions on the lists,” said Sirima.

But, Beloum told IPS, “The parties…did not fulfil their promises to…put them in positions where they would have a chance of being elected.”

The CDP, which won 73 parliamentary seats, has put 11 women in the National Assembly.

“We know that everything involving behavioural change is slow and difficult to achieve,” said Sirima. With this in mind, the CBDF has started training women for leadership – improving their public speaking skills as part of this initiative – and is pushing for them to become involved in politics and seek high-level posts for elections to come. The next legislative poll is due in five years.

“As long as women are not at this level, we know that their concerns and those of many other citizens will not be taken into account,” noted Sirima. “This is why we have been working…to improve the representation of women in decision-making bodies, and their effective participation in political life.”

The coalition had hoped to have women attain 30 percent of parliamentary seats in this month’s ballot, rather than the 11.71 percent they gained.

According to Beloum, women in the National Assembly bear part of the responsibility to change this. She believes they need to participate actively in the body, to inspire other women to take up the political challenge: “You must fight, show what you can do, and let it be seen.”