Women are underrepresented in Ghana’s political life – EU Election Observation Mission

The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) following their monitoring of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana has concluded that women are significantly underrepresented in the country’s political life.

They identified the lack of financial resources as the underlying factor to this phenomenon, adding that the two main political parties all together presented only 46 female parliamentary candidates for all 275 constituencies across the country.

Out of this, a total of 37 women from the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress managed to win their seats in the just-ended elections.

The EU EOM was, however, quick to commend the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for choosing a woman in the person of Madam Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang as their running mate.

“Women are significantly underrepresented in political life: the New Patriotic Party (NPP) fielded only 24 female candidates while the NDC ran with just 22 in 275 constituencies. Perceived traditional roles of women, and, often, a lack of financial resources, contribute to the problem. On a positive note, for the first time, one of the two main parties’ presidential candidates (NDC) chose a woman as running mate,” portions of the preliminary statement read.

The Election Observation Mission, in summary, noted that Monday, December 7, 2020 election was “organized in an efficient and transparent manner, and voters participated freely,” despite some incidence of violence.