If in Trinidad & Tobago, why not here? Trinidad & Tobago women work and win cross party in recent elections
by Hazel Brown
Listen to this. Trinidad and Tobago just held local government elections. 124 seats were contested. There were 91 woman candidates. 28 of the 91 women won. Overall, the women's success rate was 31 per cent compared to 52 per cent for the males. The number of successful women candidates in 1999 represented a 50 per cent increase over the number (19) that won in 1996. This is less than the women of Trinidad & Tobago are entitled to, but it's far, far more than the women of Guyana have. The two main parties in Trinidad & Tobago are the UNC and the PNM. As in Guyana, one is supported mainly by people of African descent (PNM), the other by people of Indian descent (UNC). Yet they worked together on this electoral project, across all parties and none. Twenty of the 44 women candidates of the PNM won their seats, and 8 of the 41 women candidates of the UNC. No Independent or third party (NAR) candidates won. But women from all the parties and none plan to continue working together. To achieve what? Power-sharing is not only about sharing power among ethnic groups. It's about the share in power that all groups, especially those traditionally excluded from power, should have. Women are the largest of those excluded groups. And once women are largely excluded from political power, it is more likely than not that we will continue to separate the private from the public, to disconnect the "micro" from the "macro", to pursue styles of governance in which "the people" (or the workers or whoever) are an abstraction. No one in Trinidad & Tobago is pretending that women do not have diverse interests. What women in Trinidad and Tobago are recognising - and acting on - is that women also have shared interests. Women in Guyana have some shared interests too, in spite of the burden of history. The drive to increase the number of women in government is widespread, and it is strong in other countries with ethnic and religious divisions. Throughout the world, numerical targets for the increase of women's participation in government are being set. For example, the Fifth Meeting of Commonwealth Ministers responsible for Women's Affairs recommended that member countries be encouraged to achieve a target of no less than 30 per cent of women in decision-making in the political, public and private sectors by the year 2005; and that countries already close to this percentage should try for gender balance by the year 2005. But in the Caribbean we pretend that the playing field is level for women and men. A man I like and respect (yes, those exist) once told me that anyone who calls for women to be guaranteed a fixed percentage of seats in government is saying that women can't make it on merit. The first obvious question is - do all the men in government in Guyana and elsewhere look like they won on merit? And secondly, does anyone really think that the reason we have so few women in government in Guyana - and everywhere else in the Caribbean - is because women lack merit? Sometimes the problem with targets seems to be fear that if we entrench targets for women, this might one day work against men. This was, I think, at work in the Guyana Constitutional Reform Commission's rejection of a proposal that is called a 60/40 proposal - neither men nor women should constitute more than 60 per cent, or less than 40 per cent, of government. But forget the Comissioners! What about Guyanese women of all parties, and none? What just happened in the Trinidad & Tobago local government elections did not happen by accident. In November 1998, the Network of Women's NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago began a campaign called "Engendering Local Government", supported by the CIDA Gender Equity Fund. The target was to train 300 women and motivate 100 women to run as candidates in all parties in the 1999 local government elections. Between November 1998 and the elections, this is what the Trinidad & Tobago women achieved: More than 200 women were trained in 10 community workshops. The workshops included women from different political parties and several prospective candidates. The project collected and documented information on local government in Trinidad & Tobago, and on women's participation and contribution. There was an intensive public awareness campaign aimed at bringing out voter support for women candidates. The campaign used radio, TV, newspapers, leaflets and bumper stickers to carry the message, "Put a woman to work for you in Local Government." On the suggestion of workshop participants that they needed to raise funds from non-partisan sources and to use them for equitable distribution, a women's political campaign fund was established. Although the fund was only established a few weeks before the elections, the Network was able to make financial contributions to 33 candidates in the three parties, plus Independents. After the elections the Network brought together all the women candidates in an event called "Moving On", which was attended by senior women representatives of both the PNM and the UNC. The gathering endorsed a proposal to form a Local Government Women's Forum in each of the fourteen municipal corporation regions. Members of each Forum will include the elected women councillors, the women candidates who were not elected, former women councillors, women activists and community workers interested in working at this level to help transform Trinidad & Tobago's politics. It is not that the political parties of Trinidad & Tobago have made a great leap forward in relation to women candidates. An issue for women in the upcoming general elections in that country is the selection of candidates. Although the two main political parties included a fair number of women in their slates for the local government elections, it seems that women were more likely to be selected to run in areas where the party felt it did not have the advantage (remember that Trinidad & Tobago uses the first-past-the post system that Guyana used to have). The impression was gained that the selection of women was just to "pretty-up" the platform and keep the women's rights activists quiet. No. The real difference that is beginning in Trinidad & Tobago's politics is a difference among the women. Let's repeat all that crossed party lines in the campaign: The training of candidates was training of women of all parties and none. The public education campaign was on behalf of women of all parties and none. The Campaign Fund was raised, and used, for women candidates of all parties and none. The planning for the future is by and for women of all parties and none. This last paragraph is added by Andaiye and is addressed to the Guyanese women from various parties and none who were at the Constitutional Reform Commission function on Saturday July 17. Aren't we tired yet of being less than others all around us, and less than we could be, even given our history? P.S. The answer to those who asked me about the on-again, off-again appearance of the column is that I apologise. Sometimes I just run out of energy. Andaiye
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