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Female Presidential Hopeful Puts Ambitions On Hold

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."