Transcript
ANDREW NAPUAT: I think the people who made the remarks about my statement somehow misinterpreted what I was intending to tell the women. So the thing is this, what I was telling them is this government, under the Salwai government, is looking at creating reserved seats. What I was wanting to tell them was, you know, now that the agenda is already with the government to deal with, the most important thing that women should realise is that even if we don't do reserved seats they have the numbers to elect women into parliament. That was the statement I made.
DON WISEMAN: But your point is that the government is very supportive of this idea of reserved seats?
AN: The government has not ruled out the idea of creating reserved seats, it's on the agenda of the government. What the government needs to do is rally the support behind that but what I was telling the women, because this has been delayed, given the circumstances, what I was telling them was that even if the government doesn't create reserved seats, they have the numbers to elect women into parliament.
DW: The barrier they run into there of course, and this happens right across the Pacific, is they come under pressure, women come under pressure, to vote the same way as their husbands vote, typically.
AN: That is something that in the past was presented, one side of the story. That's what people have been saying, they've been saying that the women or the men or the culture is part of the cause of why women are not elected to parliament. Let me give you the other side of the story. There is never a story that has been recorded that a male or a man has stopped his wife from voting for women. Our country has, based on its democratic principles, has allowed women to contest in parliament and even there is no cultural meetings stopping women to be voted into parliament so what the people have been saying in the past is not true about what our culture or even the men are reacting towards women. The men don't follow women into polling or the rooms to vote for candidates. They have all the freedom to elect the women and there have been women candidates in the past. To say that the Melanesian custom or our culture is part of that barrier, in the past we have elected women into parliament, even without reserved seats so it shows that the system works. What the women have to do is to prove themselves in leadership and for the men and other women to be convinced of their leadership so they could vote for them.
DW: Just looking a few years forward, say 2040, could you envisage a Vanuatu parliament that was 50 percent women?
AN: There are many women leaders here in Vanuatu who could be very good candidates to be elected into parliament. It raises the question of why women are not united to vote for these good women leaders, even some men vote for these good women leaders but the women are not united and so yes they could be putting blame on other systems and whatever but the first thing that they need to do is to be united. I mean, after independence, since 1980, the government recognises the importance of women in leadership which is why it set up the Vanuatu National Council of Women since 1980. So they have been supported by the government and they were responsible to advance the women in leadership and all these programmes that they gave conducted in the past but I don't see why they should be putting blames on others. Yes, if the women are united, by 2040, yes, I believe there will be more than half women in parliament.
