For women candidates, a successful campaign requires careful planning and strategizing. During the campaign planning stage, candidates set strategic campaign goals, including benchmarks for fundraising, volunteer recruitment, voter outreach and message development.
Cambodia’s political parties say they are hoping to get more women candidates to run in local elections next year. Some say they could potentially double the number of women representing their parties in commune councils after the elections in June 2012.
Only 8 percent of commune councilors were women in 2002, compared to 15 percent after the 2007 elections. The National Election Committee says nearly 11,500 commune councilor seats will be contested in the June 2012 polls, leaving a lot of room for more women candidates.
Read the complete story at Voice of America News, published 26 December 2011.
How women participate in political parties – and how those parties encourage and nurture women’s involvement and incorporate gender-equality issues – are key determinants of women’s political empowerment. They are also key to ensuring gender-equality issues are addressed in the wider society. If strategies to promote women’s involvement in the political process are to be effective, they should be linked to steps parties can take across the specific phases of the electoral cycle – the preelectoral, electoral and post-electoral phases – and to the organization and financing of the parties themselves. South Africans will take to the polls on May 18 to vote in the country’s fourth local government elections but women’s issues are glaringly absent from many of the party manifestos, observers say.
This is despite the fact that 45 percent of female-headed households live below the poverty line, according to Statistics South Africa.
Janine Hicks from the Commission on Gender Equality says that none of the five major parties have mainstreamed the issue of gender. "We have looked at a sample of party manifestos and we did a scan and analysis and in the main parties have not mainstreamed gender in their manifestos. Their main focus seems to be on service delivery," she says.
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"If I had only known that when I was young," or "if they had only told me" are just some of the statements made by many women who seek assistance at the centre for victims of gender violence set up by the local government in a town on the outskirts of the Argentine capital. The survey on gender violence among adolescents noted that one out of four women in Argentina has been the victim of some kind of violence, and that in 2010, at least 260 "femicides" – murders in a context of gender violence – were committed in this country of 40 million people, almost all of them by the victims' current or former partners.
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Republicans have insisted they were short-changed in the latest round of legislative redistricting. So were women, according to a Rutgers University report released on Monday. Women account for four of the seven lawmakers whose political careers ended because of the new political boundaries. The four female Assembly members declined to seek re-election after they were assigned to different districts.
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Originally developed a decade ago by NDI's staff team in Russia, this manual traveled the globe numerous times with localized updates. NDI's team of political party experts in Malaysia edited the version you hold for that specific context. In 2004, Indonesia's candidates ran campaigns using this manual and, later, candidates and their teams similarly followed the formula in that country's first directr elections for governors and mayors. In 2007, in the landmark elections required by the peace agreement in Aceh after a forty-year, conflict, a more substantial update to the manual gave candidates greater confidence to compete in the ever-changing world of campaign politics. The updates made to the manual reflect advances in targetting, message development and the use of technology in campaigns in every country; the lesson for all of us is that political campaigning is, quite simply, about effective planning. Campaigning techniques are refined over time. The lesson of political practitioners everywhere is to learn from each others' victories and mistakes. And, to make sure the campaign we run is appropriate to the context in which we are competing.
It’s not a world you can enter without being prepared. I’m convinced that being involved in politics implies a certain personal culture. You can’t be the kind of woman who’s at a loss for words, you have to stand up for yourself and learn to take what comes your way.
iKNOW Politics: What were the challenges you faced as a woman political leader?
Honourable Celestine: While in office I worked on food self-sufficiency and income-generating activities. I gave women doing agricultural work small loans so they could increase their harvests. I also worked to improve the truly awful working conditions of women nut oil producers. First the women boiled the nuts, then they lowered their bodies into the liquid to knead it. This took every ounce of physical strength they had, which is, after all, limited. Their output was therefore low and they sold what little they produced. Those who bought the oil took advantage of the low prices and resold it for more money on the market. To put an end to this ordeal, I gave the women an oil press, which allowed them to increase their production and their income. The oil press had an immediate impact on productivity, profits rose sharply.
iKNOW Politics: Did you introduce any laws in favour of women during your term in office?
Honourable Celestine: I tabled a bill on violence against women. It wasn’t easy to obtain the signatures of the male colleagues I needed to present the text. They prefer to speak of gender-based violence, because they feel that men are also victims of violence. So we changed the wording to gender-based violence. We have several laws to explain, we’re thinking about the law on the right of women to have control of their own bodies, the law on HIV/AIDS, the law on sexual harassment, among others. Today in Benin, the schools are emptying of their girl pupils, parents are afraid to send their daughters to school because they’re harassed on all sides, by the teachers, the village elders and young boys.
iKNOW Politics: In your constituency, did support from women play a big role?
Honourable Celestine: I was elected in a commune of five constituencies of 400,000 inhabitants, and thanks to the loans and donations I made I had many women partisans. But at the last minute a man came along and handed out banknotes and managed to win them over. This happened because our women have daily needs to meet, so they are always tempted to accept a banknote to solve their problems rather than to vote for promises that won’t be kept for months or years. They cannot think in the long term, what interests them is today. Moreover, I think that men are very good at pulling the wool over our eyes. Populism is a problem everywhere in Africa, extreme poverty plays in favour of vote-buying, and it’s very hard to fight this. This is why we have to focus on educating young girls, to broaden their minds and allow them to project into the future.
iKNOW Politics: Some women are reluctant to get involved in politics because they think their family life will suffer. What do you think? Why does it seem so hard to reconcile family life and politics?
Honourable Celestine: I think that from the outset there has to be a relationship of trust between husband and wife that makes it easier for the man to give the woman more freedom. Trust within the couple is very important and implies a degree of responsibility on the part of the woman. Her first duty is to make sure her household is run properly. Getting involved in politics is a choice, it’s a decision the woman makes, and she must not allow it to take over to the detriment of her other responsibilities. Women have to be well organized, to manage their time well so that they can be wife, mother and active woman politician all rolled into one. Those who are not prepared for this should not get involved or they should be prepared to break up their homes.
iKNOW Politics: What advice would you give young women who want to get involved in politics?
Honourable Celestine: I ask them to have the courage to face the world of politics. They have to show a sense of responsibility to be able to perform their duties, and to be able to put up with a lot. That’s what politics is, first and foremost, it’s not a walk in the park. You have to be mentally prepared to face all kinds of difficulties. You’ll be called all kinds of names, accused of all manner of things. It’s not a world you can enter without being prepared. I’m convinced that being involved in politics implies a certain personal culture. You can’t be the kind of woman who’s at a loss for words, you have to stand up for yourself and learn to take what comes your way. Getting involved in politics is not as simple as going to a party or a dinner dance, it’s more complex than that!
