One-hundred and eighteen (118) women including 29 incumbent female members of parliament are racing with 682 males for the 276 parliamentary seats across the regions in Ghana.
These women successfully went through their respective pre-elections primaries to seal their candidature, while others are contesting as independent candidates.
The pre-election primaries organized by the two major political parties, the NPP and the NDC saw about 11 of the 40 women parliamentarians losing their bids to contest in the 2024 elections to men.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have presented more than 80 female candidates together while the other parties including PNC, CPP and independent candidates share the rest.
Currently in Ghana, women’s representation in parliament stands at 40 out of the 275 constituencies representing 14.5%, this figure ranks lower than the global average of 26.7% and much lower than the 27% average in sub-Saharan Africa.
Within the gender gap index, Ghana is placed 23 among 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa indicating that Ghana needs to do more to increase women’s representation in governance and all levels of leadership.
Gender advocates have expressed worry about the phenomenon and called on Ghanaians to vote massively for all women contesting in the elections to increase women representation in parliament come January 2025.
Mrs Joana Opare, an eminent member of the National Peace Council (NPC) and a staunch gender advocate, at the launching of a ‘Women’s situation Room’ described the phenomenon as worrying given the fact that there was a significant decrease after the pre-election primaries.
She therefore called for massive support from women especially to rally behind the 118 women contesting on December 7 to change the narrative.
Dr Charity Binka, Ghana chapter President of the African Women leaders Network (AWLN) also called on women to show solidarity by voting for any woman contesting in their respective constituencies.
She said women’s voter population in Ghana was about eight million “if we all decide to vote for these 118 women, they would win and increase women’s representation in the next parliament”
