By Savithri Rodrigo
(Commonwealth Union)_An independent candidate who is standing up for gender equality in the country’s governance structure is making her voice heard, urging voters in Vanuatu to elect more female Members of Parliament to ensure gender balance and more balance in debate and discussion. The Pacific Island nation has had only five female MPs since its independence in 1980 and has not voted in a single woman in the last three elections.
Doresday Kenneth Lui, who was Vanuatu’s former Director General of Justice, is vociferous in her call for ending the pattern of an all-male parliament, given that Vanuatu is embarrassingly one of only three countries with no female lawmakers in its governing body. In the 2020 election, the call was for the Prime Minister at the time Bob Loughman to set aside at least half of the 52 seats in the legislature in future polls. However, in a political system stacked against aspiring women politicians, most women lack money and resources to contest and are forced to drop out of the race.
Lui is not to be deterred. A university graduate who worked in the public sector nearly all her life, she challenged the government in court when she was wrongfully terminated as Director General of Justice and won the case. Her tenacity and determination are what give her an edge with the people who look up to her as an educated professional who will add value to the country’s leadership and more importantly in making the female voice heard.
“A female voice has been absent from the Red Roof for far too long now,” she says referring to the red-roofed parliament building. “We need our women’s voices in Parliament in order to confirm that gender balance is alive and well on the floor of Parliament. It is my prayer that female candidates will make it to Parliament to ensure a balance in debates and discussions.”
In her reasoning given to The Daily Post she explains: “We need to go back to the Preamble of the Constitution to re-equip ourselves with our Faith in God, Melanesian Values and Christian Principles, which were the focus of the original Leaders of the Independence struggle. In order for us to walk in those principles, we need to have leaders who not only believe in those principles but also walk the talk of those principles and only then, will the foundation be firm. And only then can we confirm that the Almighty God gave that wisdom to our Forefathers to word our Nation’s motto of ‘Long God Yumi Stanap’ (With God we stand).”
Vanuatu’s governance is derived from the British Westminster system with the principle of parliamentary supremacy embedded into the constitution. The 52 members are elected by the people for a four-year term.
