Hail Ghana’s female Speaker

Article:Salome Donkor

"This is a historic moment — for the Congress, and for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited more than 200 years. Never losing faith, we waited through the many years of struggle to achieve our rights. But women weren't just waiting; women were working. Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal.........".
(Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi, first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives).
Ghana made history together with states like the United States of America (USA), Pakistan and Rwanda, with the appointment of the first female Speaker of Parliament.
Mrs Justice Joyce Adeline Bamford-Addo, a retired Supreme Court Judge succeeds Mr Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi Hughes as the fourth Speaker of the Fourth Republican Parliament.
By the rules of the House, the Speaker presides over Parliament and enforces observance of all rules that govern its conduct. After a general election, the majority party in Parliament, in consultation with other parties, nominates a Speaker. The Speaker cannot be a Member of Parliament though he/she must possess the qualifications to stand for elections as a Member of Parliament.
The country has had two other male Speakers of Parliament since the inception of the Fourth Republican Parliament in 1992.
They are the late Mr Daniel Francis Annan and the late Mr Peter Ala Adjetey.
A retired Supreme Court Judge, Justice Joyce Bamford-Addo was the first Supreme Court Judge to voluntarily retire in the Kufuor Administration in July 2003 in the wake of the controversy that greeted the appointment of Justice George Kingsley Acquah, after Justice Edward Wiredu had left on health grounds.
She was born on March 26, 1937 and called to the English Bar in London in 1961.
She was the first female Supreme Court Judge and was the first woman to be the Director of Public Prosecutions at the Attorney-General’s Office.
Mrs Bamford-Addo was a member of the Legal Aid Board and member of Legal Class Board, and was also Ghana’s Representative on the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
She has attended many conferences, including the Conference on Status of Women in Tunis in 1983 and the 34th and 35th UN Sessions on Commission on the Status of Women in 1990 and 1991.
She was in 2000 elected as “Woman of the Year” by the American Biographical Institute.
The nomination of Mrs Bamford-Addo (described as a woman of intellect and principle) for the third highest position of the land seems to fulfil earlier remarks made by the Majority Leader and Member of Parliament for Nadowli, Mr Alban Bagbin, after the delivery of the President’s State of the Nation Address, that a woman was favoured by the party for the job.
The current Speaker of the United States House of Representatives is Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi. With her election as Speaker in 2007, she is the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. On January 3, Pelosi defeated Republican John Boehner of Ohio with 233 votes compared to his 202 votes in the election for Speaker of the House.
Before being elected Speaker in the 110th Congress, Pelosi, born March 26, 1940 was the House Minority Leader from 2003 to 2007, holding the post during the 108th, and 109th Congresses.
On March 25, 2008, Dr Fehmida Mirza, a member of the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party was elected the first woman Speaker of Pakistan's General Assembly.
On October 6, 2008, Rwanda's newly-elected Members of Parliament voted in the first woman Speaker, setting a record as the first female-majority parliament in the whole world.
Ms Mukantabama Rose, a representative of Kigali city, beat Mr Mukama Abbas, the only male contesting for the same post with 70 votes to become the leader of Rwanda's Chamber of Deputies.
Fourteen years after the genocide, Rwanda's established constitution, adopted after a referendum held in 2003, guarantees 30 per cent quota of the 80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, for women.
In the 2008 elections, an unprecedented 20 of the 53 seats went to women after the party of the ruling government headed by President Kagame endorsed 35 female candidates in an inter-party coalition. The country, therefore, became the first nation in the world to elect a majority of women to its legislative assembly.
One of two seats reserved for youth also went to a woman.
This was interpreted by Rwanda's National Electoral Commission (NEC) to mean that 98 per cent of Rwandan voters opted for a 56 per cent representation of women in parliament, making it the largest number of female MPs in a single legislative assembly.
South Africa’s former Speaker of the National Assembly who occupied the position from 2004 to 2008 was appointed the country's deputy president in September, 2008.
Mbete replaced Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who resigned together with 10 other cabinet ministers out of loyalty to Thabo Mbeki, who stepped down as president of South Africa last year.
Before the December 7 polls in Ghana, there were intensive campaigns to encourage the electorate to vote for female parliamentary aspirants.
The Hunger Project (THP) as part of the “We Know Politics” project, initiated a campaign by a group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) including, Gender Centre, Federation of International Women Lawyers (FIDA Ghana), CoWIG and Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) Ghana with the aim of addressing challenges that women face in governance and to increase their participation in politics.
Certified election results from the Electoral Commission, however, showed that out of the 103 women who contested the parliamentary elections, only 20 were voted into parliament. The former parliament had 25 women.
The Convenor of the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT). Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin described the appointment of Mrs Bamford-Addo as Ghana’s first female Speaker of Parliament, as a positive step.
She said with no woman emerging as a Vice-President and with the reduction in the number of female MPs in the current parliament, the appointment of the first female Speaker, will bridge the gap.
By her nomination, two of the three arms of government, that is the Judiciary and the Legislature, are headed by women. The Judiciary is headed by Chief Justice (Mrs) Georgina Theodora Wood.
Dr Mensah-Kutin said her appointment also gives credence to the fact that democracy is about inclusiveness and equality and women need to work hard to develop their capabilities to support national development.