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Public urged to vote for female candidates

Women's rights activists across Bali celebrated International Wo-men's Day on Sunday by urging the public to vote for female candidates in the upcoming legislative elections

Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post)
Denpasar
Tue, March 10, 2009

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Public urged to vote for female candidates

W

omen's rights activists across Bali celebrated International Wo-men's Day on Sunday by urging the public to vote for female candidates in the upcoming legislative elections.

Held at the Bajra Sandhi Monument in Renon, Denpasar, the celebration was attended by activists from various organizations, including Mitra Kasih, Bali Sruti, Woman Caucus, the Inter-Party Women Forum and the Women's Organization Cooperation Body (BKOW).

Carrying banners reading "Let's Vote for Women" and "No Woman, No Change", the activists distri-buted 1,000 T-shirts and flyers to passing motorists and those in attendance.

Nyoman Sri Widhiyanti of Mitra Kasih said the celebration-cum-public campaign was part of their response to the Constitutional Court's ruling to allocate seats to candidates who won the most votes, regardless of their standing in their party hierarchies.

Prior to the ruling, parties were allowed to allocate 30 percent of seats they won to female candidates in an affirmative action policy.

"The court's ruling destroyed our struggle to achieve that quota, so now we have to start from scratch again," she said.

The capabilities and qualities of female candidates, Widhiyanti stressed, were not inferior to their male counterparts.

"This is not a struggle about sex. By having more women in legislatures, there will be more pro-women policies drawn up," she said.

She cited the fact that there were currently only a small num-ber of women in legislative bodies as the sole reason why issues on women had become marginalized topics.

"Politicians use issues on women as nothing more than political commodities and jargon," she said.

Data from the Bali General Elections Commission (KPUD) shows 5,056 candidates will compete for 399 seats in the April elections. Of that number, only 226 are female candidates.

Inter-Party Women Forum's coordinator Putu Suprapti Santy Sastra stressed the presence of more women in parliament was critical in ushering in significant political change.

"Because women's politics is the kind that will not embezzle the public's money," she said.

Udayana University deputy rector Gede Putu Wirawan, who attended the celebration, said he would certainly vote for a female candidate.

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