Female Presidential Hopeful Puts Ambitions On Hold
February 17, 2000
Aida Diop-Soumare
PANA Correspondent
DAKAR, Senegal (PANA) - Marieme Wane Ly would have made history in
Senegalese politics if she had only registered as the first female
presidential candidate in the country.
Marieme Wane Ly, 50, had actually announced her candidacy for the 27
February presidential election before withdrawing a few weeks later.
Ly has been interested in politics for several years. Her house is regularly
visited by unionists and politicians.
She claims 30 years of activism in several women's and political movements.
She entered politics in 1969, as a member of a left- wing Marxist-Leninist
youth group who are now members of Landing Savane's African Party For
Democracy and Socialism (AJ/PADS).
A founding member of the National Democratic Rally (RND) with the late
scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop, she was also chairperson of the Women's Movement
in the Convention of Democrats and Patriots (CDP/Garab-Gi), set up in 1992
by Prof. Iba Der Thiam, a former cabinet minister and a presidential
candidate for the upcoming election.
"After analysing the political situation with my comrades in the Senegalese
Women's Council, we have realised that, however intelligent, competent or
experienced a Senegalese woman may be, the highest position she can get in a
party apparatus is the chair of the women's movement," she told PANA in an
interview.
There are about 40 political parties in Senegal, all of which have "a
national chairperson of the women's movement," Ly said.
With this realisation, she set up her own party, the Party for African
Renewal (PARENA) on the symbolic date of 8 March 1998 (International Women's
Day), thus becoming the first woman to head a political party in Senegal.
Less than two years later, she announced her plan to run for the presidency
before renouncing the move a few weeks later.
But was she really serious about her candidacy?
"I was serious but when I got evidence that the election was not going to be
fair, I decided not to sacrifice the meagre resources I could gather," she
replied.
Asked how she was going to finance the campaign, she said she had been
promised by "various circles" to fund her ticket.
"I am not rich. I am a secondary school teacher, like my husband."
Ly added that one supporter even offered to pay the registration fee of six
million CFA francs (10,000 US dollars) to the Senegalese treasury.
Despite her withdrawal, Ly said she has not entirely abandoned the challenge
to run for the presidency.
For now, however, she is trying to negotiate with other parties willing to
accept her manifesto based on her "perception of women's promotion and the
integration of a gender approach into the development process."
She did not give details about her approach, but she favoured a quota system
for women to hold public office.
"Some women have gone beyond this approach, which is necessary in grassroots
organisations. Otherwise women will continue to be political lightweights,"
Ly noted.
She added that "affirmative action" for women is a "historic necessity. We
must move towards a just and egalitarian society, with equal opportunity for
equal competence. Since we have not got that yet, quotas should be imposed."
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