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Today In History |
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On September 9, 1911
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1st European airpost (Hendon to Windsor, England)
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Female candidates speak out as campaigning closes |
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 MAZAR-E-SHARIF, 16 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - 45-year-old Farema Warakzai from
the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, is standing in Sunday’s
parliamentary election. She’s confident that women candidates will do
well in the historic poll – because they had not been responsible for
the decades of violence the nation endured.
"We have not used guns against the people, so they will vote for us."
she said, adding people should be free to choose who they vote for and
not be influenced by warlords and regional strongmen, who many fear
will influence the polls.
On Thursday, candidates could be seen
out on the streets of this ancient city, some in cars, some on donkeys,
some with loudhailers and makeshift sound systems, trying their best to
muster as much support as they could before campaigning officially
ended on Friday morning.
Despite her optimism about the
election, along with many other female candidates in conservative
Afghanistan, Warakzai was unhappy that there had not been additional
support for them in the electoral process. "We did not have enough
budgets to carry on our campaigns, compared to men, because this
society is so unequal," she complained.
Another female candidate
in Mazar said she had gone into debt to contest the election. "I have
borrowed much money for this electoral campaign." Pashton Qaderi, said,
adding she had limited her campaigning to the city itself, due to a
lack of security in rural areas nearby.
Up to 6,000 Afghans have registered to stand in the legislative and provincial council elections scheduled for 18 September.
According
to the UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), of the 2,900
people registered to run for the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga (lower house),
nearly 350 were women. Afghan electoral law requires that at least 68
seats in the general assembly be reserved for women.
When
Lawngina, a 35-year-old school teacher from the ultra-conservative
Pashtun province of Paktika, in southeastern Afghanistan, told her
family that she was contesting the country's landmark legislative
polls, the first in 30 years, she faced stiff resistance.
"My
family first strived to convince me to withdraw my candidacy. Later
they prevented me from campaigning and even did not allow me to
distribute my posters. Most of the people in Paktika are very
narrow-minded and traditionalists. They do not want women to campaign,"
said the widow, who had been forced to quit campaigning in the province
and move to Kabul.
In neighbouring Paktia province, another
woman, Nafeesa Rishtin is contesting the election in the provincial
capital of Gardez. In contrast to Lawngina's experience, she said she
had been welcomed in most communities where she had campaigned.
"I
have travelled to faraway districts and returned home late in the
evening, but I did not have security problems. My only complaint is
that a lack of resources has prevented me from doing more for my
campaign," she said.
She mentioned the fact that she was up
against male candidates who were splashing out on printing huge posters
and calling big meetings. "This kind of thing is well beyond my means,"
she lamented.
JEMB officials said they were aware that women
candidates had to contend with security and cultural problems in rural
areas, but said they were unaware of any particular cases of harassment.
"Yes,
women generally face security threats in districts and there are also
traditional impediments ahead of their campaigning, but as we have been
monitoring the situation there was no big issue of such problems," JEMB
head, Dr Mohammad Nader Nikyar, said.
But according to Afghan
women's affairs minister Masouda Jalal, social relations in Afghanistan
had militated against women's participation in elections. "The main
reason thousands of women didn't become candidates is that they can't
afford the financial expenses," Jalal said in a recent interview.
Men remain in charge of most households' budgets in the strongly traditional and Muslim society.
In
another southeastern province, Khost, Wolesi Jirga candidate Mahboba
Sadat Ismaili, said money had been a key factor in the election. "I
believe that those who spent lots of money and conducted good campaigns
have more chance to win the elections. Those that did not have little
chance of making their way to the parliament or the provincial
councils."
Meanwhile, a female candidate was wounded in an
attack by unidentified gunmen in the Wigal district of the northeastern
Nuristan province on Wednesday evening. Armed men opened fire at Wolesi
Jirga candidate Hawa Alam Nuristani while she was campaigning in the
area. She is still at the US-led coalition force's base in Bagram
outside Kabul, receiving medical treatment.
A week ago, another
female candidate was attacked in the Khogyani district of the
neighbouring Nangarhar provinces, but escaped unhurt while three of her
companions were injured. Safia Seddiqi said the attack came while she
was campaigning in the Wazir-Pirakhelo area.
Last month, Zahra
Sahel, a candidate campaigning in Mazar, also survived an attempt on
her life when a car tried to run her down.
Joshua Wright, a
spokesman for the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) said on
Thursday they had received about 2,700 complaints from across
Afghanistan, of which some 2,000 had been addressed while 700 were
still being investigated. Some were from women candidates complaining
of harassment and intimidation, but did not say what percentage of all
complaints these concerns made up.
"There are systematic
complaints from female candidates in provinces and in the capital about
security problems they had, about violence and harassments," Wright
noted. |
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