Braving all odds a group of rural women from the Central Province prepares for the next PC polls

Election eves and PC polls

By Feizal Samath

In a country that boasts of the first woman prime minister in the world, it has been a hard struggle for ordinary women to enter mainstream politics. Now a group of women from the rural hinterland are ready for a long-delayed provincial election due in the next three months, strengthening the growing campaign in Sri Lanka for women's large-scale participation in politics.

"We are preparing for the polls and plan to hold a massive rally in Nuwara Eliya on February 14," said Vimali Karunaratne, leader of an independent group of 18 women and four men from the Sinhala Tamil Rural Women's Network which hopes to contest polls to the central provincial council.

But widespread violence and intimidation, going down even to the degrading level of stripping and parading men and women, at the north west election on January 25, have been viewed as major obstacles to efforts by women to enter the political mainstream.

Two people were killed in the run-up to the Wayamba provincial polls while election monitors recorded more than 800 complaints of intimidation, violence and other illegal acts.

A few women were caught in the violence. Women election monitors were chased away from polling stations and some women of rival parties were stripped and forced to parade naked on the road, allegedly by PA supporters. Ms. Karunaratne emphasizes she is disturbed by the events but says her group is determined to contest the poll.

"We have to face the future of politics, whether violent or not, and have told all political opponents that we have every right to contest like anyone else," she told the Sunday Times.

"We want to create a new political culture devoid of armed rivalries and confrontation," she added. Ms. Karunaratne's organisation is working in the plantation sector, in the Nuwara Eliya district, where women are short of proper housing, nutrition, education and equal wages with men. Their election campaign will focus on fighting for an improvement in the life of the plantation women.

Jezima Ismail, a well known educationist and women's activist, says that it is essential to find women who are committed to issues that advance women's development, instead of women who are virtually forced into politics after losing a husband or a son.

"We need women in parliament and other local government bodies who would represent certain causes instead of being elected merely because they are widows," Ms. Ismail, a former president of the South Asian Federation of University Women, said.

Women monitors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were appalled by the incidents at polling stations. One monitor said at some places, the three women in their group of six monitors, were afraid to get off the vehicle and visit the polling booths because of the presence of armed gunmen wearing blue caps - the PA colour - who intimidated voters.

At one polling station, gunmen fired shots into the air, forcing the group to flee, without stopping. "If this is the level of violence at just one regional election, I dread to think what would happen at other elections. How can women contest polls if there is this kind of intimidation," one woman monitor said after a visit to polling stations at Kuliyapitiya.

Many women voters complained of intimidation. "A group of four young women told us how PA supporters had come to their village in vehicles and threatened residents against going to vote. The women, however, came to vote but found that their ballots had already been cast," the women monitor said.

Women are also hurt by the fact that the President did little to stop the violence. "We are angered and ashamed to see these things happening when a woman is at the helm of affairs in this country," countered Indrani Irriyagolle, president of the Sinhalese Women's Association for the Welfare and Advancement of Women.

"At most women's conferences abroad, Sri Lanka comes in for praise because its leaders are women. But this unchecked violence has shattered all the hopes we had for a better life for rural women under a woman president," she said.

One of the worst incidents was that of a 53-year-old woman being stripped, along with her male colleagues, allegedly by pro-government supporters and forced to walk on a public highway, while campaigning for the opposition United National Party.

Ms. Irriyagolle, a vice president of the International Alliance of Women which has United Nations consultative status, said her organisation has been involved in training nearly 400 rural women for a role in politics since 1985.

"We have had extensive training courses on women's rights, lessons on the constitution, and civil and political rights," she said, adding that they planned to field 100 women candidates at elections by 2000.

But Ms.Irriyagolle said their plans to field women candidates, either as independents or through other political parties, would depend on whether President Kumaratunga takes steps to ensure the next five elections in provincial councils would be peaceful.

"We cannot enter the political mainstream if violence continues unchecked at the next few polls," she said.

"To create a new political culture in which women can contest without fear, women and the family must put pressure on the men to stop resorting to violence," believes Monica Ruwanpathirana, an author on women's issues and a director of the gender resource centre of the Participatory Institute of Development Alternatives.

All these years, the few women who took up politics came from high-class families, where there was no likely male heir-apparent. They were the products of the feudalistic system, she added.

"If the husband or father was killed and there was no male to take over his role, the wife or daughter filled the vacuum. She also garnered the sympathy vote. But there have been only one or two women who have contested in their own right and won a seat in Parliament," explained Ms. Ruwanpathirana, who works towards poverty alleviation among grassroots women.

"We need to change that. But women cannot contest in the culture of violence. So our priority should be to ensure violence-free elections," she added.

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