Yaounde, Cameroon — An estimated 8 million voters in Chad go to the polls Dec. 29 in legislative, local and district elections. Female leaders and activists, however, say women candidates are being underrepresented.
Chadian officials say the legislative elections will mark an end to a three-year transition from military to civilian rule that began when General Mahamat Idriss Deby seized power in April 2021 following the death of his father, long-serving President Idriss Deby Itno.
During the transitional period, Deby said he would make sure women, who constitute more than 51% of Chad’s population, were nominated in legislative, provincial and district elections. He said Chad would respect its pledges as a signatory to the Maputo Protocol, a commitment by African nations through the African Union to ensure gender equality in political decision making.
But activists say women constitute just over one-third of the candidates in this year’s races, in which 180 political parties have nominated more than 8,500 candidates. They say limiting women from elective positions prohibits a majority of the central African nation’s civilians from participating in their country’s development and legislating and voting on laws that will improve living conditions.
Ahmed Bartchiret, president of ANGE, Chad’s national elections management body, acknowledged the low number of women running for elected office.
He said women constitute less than 35% of the lists of nominees submitted by political parties, including Deby’s Patriotic Salvation Movement, or MPS, for the Dec. 29 elections.
ANGE also acknowledged that some nominations, including those of women, were turned down, but gave no further details. ANGE said anyone whose nomination was rejected can take up the issue through the courts.
Women’s groups, including the Association of Indigenous Women and People and the Civil Society Group Against Injustice and Inequality, said in a release that ANGE rejected nomination papers of women candidates who could not pay the roughly $250 application fee.
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Activists, however, say some political parties are still very reluctant to nominate women, at times claiming that women are not educated enough to occupy political office.
Amina Priscille Longoh is Chad’s minister of women and child protection. Speaking Wednesday on state television, she noted that in some communities, there is resistance to women seeking higher office.
Longoh said Deby’s strong political will to involve more women in politics is facing opposition from communities, traditional rulers and some clerics, who think that women should stay at home to take care of their husbands and children. She said Deby has ordered that a mass education campaign be carried out to advocate for the respect of women’s rights and political participation.
Longoh also said many women lack the financial means to run in elections.
Some Chadian women have complained that Prime Minister Allamaye Halina, whom Deby appointed on May 23 as part of a new civilian government, has reduced the number of female ministers from 12 to eight.
Activists say the government has not respected a resolution of the central African nations’ 2022 Inclusive and Sovereign National Dialogue which states that more women should be appointed to government positions. Female leaders say women constitute the majority of Chad’s population and can have more influence than men in peacekeeping processes.
