NGO to support Yemeni women during elections

Sana’a: A Yemeni non-governmental organization said it will start a project of raising funds to support 21 Yemeni women in the parliamentary elections, which will be held in April 2009.

The call to support 21 women from the country’s 21 provinces came after the failure of political parties to reach an agreement on amending the current elections law for allocating 15 percent of parliament seats for women. The 15 percent quota was proposed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh one year ago.

The NGO, Eradat Sha’ab, which is supported by the government, called all political parties to give up the wrangles and exaggerations in women’s issues and provide real support for women in the upcoming elections. 

The percentage of women voting has increased in the three parliamentary elections during 1993, 1997, 2003, but as candidates and winners, they remarkably decreased. The latest polls place women at about 50 percent of the voters, and in the 301-seat House of Representatives there is now only one woman compared to 10 women in 1990, and three in 1993.

“The women’s movement has lost a lot of legal and actual advantages since 1990 because of the Islamist party, Islah,” said Jameela Ali Raja who participated in the symposium which concluded Thursday under the slogan title The Yemeni Woman Is a Partner in Making the Future. 

The two-day symposium, organized by the NGO, Eradat Sha’ab, was attended by government officials, opposition politicians, and civil society organizations.

The political parties have been promising to help women participate in a decision-making process, but they fail every time to support them in elections. The largest Islamist opposition party, Islah, ban women from running for parliament, but encourage voting for men supporters.

Dominating the political opposition alliance of the Islamists, are socialists and Nasserites. Islah makes the alliance unhelpful for women.

“The women did not get anything from the alliance of this opposition alliance, it provided the women as a sacrifice,” said Raja.

Mohammad Al Sabri, a politician from the opposition alliance said, “The issue of women is political, and it is an issue of conflict like the issue of the war on terrorism.”

“The most dangerous obstacle facing the partnership of women in making the future from the political point of view is the mixture between what is a national demand and national interest, and what is a foreign external demand.”

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