Ghana’s next Parliament will see 35 women take their place as female legislators after the 2016 general elections.
This number is an increase of 6, in from the election 2012 figure of 29, where 133 women contested 102 parliamentary seats.
Of the 35 seats, 12 are held by the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and 23 held by the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
But the figure represents only 12.72 percent of the total parliamentarians, yet again falling short of the 30 percent mark activists at the Beijing Conference of 1995 deemed satisfactory.
Ghana’s Sub-Saharan African counterparts; Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa, feature rates of 63.80 percent, 42.70 percent and 41.80 percent of women representation in parliament respectively.
1,158 parliamentary candidates contested the 275 parliamentary seats, and only were 137 of the aspirants were women.
The NDC led with 40 women candidates, the NPP put forth 29, Convention People’s Party (CPP) had 28, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) had 17, the People’s National Congress (PNC) had 9, the National Democratic Party (NDP) had 6, the All People’s Congress (APC) 2 and the United People’s Party (UPP) had 1 candidate.
There were also 4 women who contested as independent candidates this past election.
On a regional basis, the Eastern Region had 5 women winning their seats, the Volta Region also had 5, the Northern Region had 1 and the Greater Accra Region had 10 women elected as parliamentarians.
None of the female candidates in the Upper West Region won their seats.
Below is a list of all the female candidates and the winners (in bold)
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
