| In
February 1997 my colleague and I went on our first in a
series of trips to Yemen to design and implement a voter
education project aimed at increasing women’s
participation in the 1997 Yemeni parliamentary
elections.
This project was
initiated and funded by the British Embassy in Sana’a,
administered by the British Council and implemented by
Electoral Reform International Services -
the international branch of the Electoral Reform
Society. The particular circumstances of Yemen’s very
recent past - unification,
multi-party elections and civil war -
coupled with
its position in a region not known for holding
competitive elections made it an obvious choice. Thus
the elections in Yemen took on particular importance as
they constituted one small but significant step along
the long road towards genuine multi-party competitive
democracy. Hadhramaut was chosen as a region for
historical reasons. Moreover, it was felt that the focus
of foreign and local interest is mostly on Sana’a and
the north, making the southern region an attractive area
of study. Finally, women were chosen as a subject matter
because 50% of the population cannot be ignored in any
project aimed at encouraging democracy and the
democratic process. The role that women play in raising
and nurturing new generations makes it imperative to pay
them the attention they are due if changing societal
prejudices is ever to be achieved.
The project was
fascinating but controversial -
fascinating because
the country’s unfortunate geographic location in a
region not famous for holding competitive elections or
upholding democratic traditions made Yemen’s own
experiment of dabbling with democracy a challenge in
itself; controversial because any involvement in the
political life of a country by outside institutions is
usually perceived as political intervention. Indeed, we
were initially treated with some suspicion and our task
was made even more difficult with the decision of some
local actors to boycott the elections. Thus to be
involved in a project on a topic that was ipso facto
rejected by some parties was seen as partisan. To be
encouraging the women electorate actually to go out and
vote was perceived as an intolerable interference in the
affairs of a sovereign state. Although we were aware of
the significance of our actions and the interpretations
they engendered, we nevertheless decided to proceed as
planned.
The general objectives of the
project were to encourage voter participation in the
elections; to develop voter awareness of the democratic
process; and to improve women’s understanding of the
electoral process. The more specific aims were to
encourage women voters’ participation in the
elections, specifically in the Hadhramaut Governorate.
The way forward was to commission an attitudinal survey
targeted at both men and women in order to assess the
extent of people’s knowledge of the electoral process
in general and the 27th April election in particular,
and design and implement the voter education campaign in
its light. We also decided that this should be a locally
executed project managed by local project co-ordinators.
The immediate objectives of the
survey were to evaluate voters’ attitudes towards
women’s participation in the elections in that
Governorate in particular; to create an accurate picture
of local conditions; and to prepare the ground for
design and launching of the voter education campaign.
The more general objective of the survey was to enable
us to quantify the extent and nature of the democratic
transformation of the society in general.
The
Campaign
Based on the results of the
survey, a multi-pronged approach was adopted. The first
approach was to produce a cassette with several
components: a poem on the elections written and read in
the Hadhrami dialect by a Hadhrami poet; this poem would
also form the basis of a song played by a 13-piece band
and sung by a Hadhrami singer. The cassette also had a
dialogue where people of various cross-sections of
society exchange information about the elections,
stressing participation and technical aspects of the
process based on the survey findings. Two thousand
copies of the cassette were produced and distributed in
various constituencies in Hadhramaut.
The second approach was to
produce a short 30-second video emphasising two main
points: that women vote in segregated polling stations
staffed only by women; and that the ballot was secret.
Four different versions of the video were produced, each
with different lyrics and music from the song. The props
for the video which included the voting booth, curtain,
indelible ink, an official stamp and the ballot box were
all originals provided by the Supreme Electoral
Commission. The video was broadcast on national
television since there is no local television in
Hadhramaut.
The final approach was through
the placement of adverts in the national newspapers.
Each advertisement was a full page still image from the
video which was accompanied by an appropriate verse from
the poem which changed every day. The title of the
advertisement each day was the same title as the audio
cassette and song.
It was hoped that this unified
approach would help maintain a link between the
components of the project. By using the song in all the
various formats we hoped to create a strong
identification with the campaign and a unifying theme
throughout.
Project
Evaluation
It was encouraging to know that
almost all of those questioned had heard the tape and
understood the message. The tape was apparently played
on loudspeakers during many electoral rallies,
distributed and exchanged amongst friends, and played in
cafes. The television clip was not as widely viewed as
hoped as competition for air time was intense in the
immediate pre-electoral period. The newspaper ads proved
very popular. The simplistic but strong imagery of the
adverts made a very stunning image and tied in well with
the music and video cassettes.
Electoral
Conclusions
In a wider
sense, the participation of women in the election in the
South was dependent upon a number of variables such as
the political boycott and social constraints on their
participation. But probably the most important
impediment to real female participation in the electoral
and political processes in Yemen is the pervasively high
rate of illiteracy which serves as a psychological and
physical obstacle to participation. Indeed, from our own
observations of the voting process in the Wadi
Hadhramaut, women were not only largely ignorant of the
process -
struggling to comprehend the ballot paper and how to
fill it in - but
were not in possession of the skills needed to
participate independently, making them susceptible to
undue influence and monitoring by interested parties.
A longer term effort to educate
the people on the mechanics of voting needs to be
undertaken for the next elections. Democracy in Yemen is
still embryonic and operates in a region which not only
lacks a western-style democratic tradition but is
largely hostile to it.
Thus whilst quantitative
participation in the electoral process is doubtless
necessary in order to increase the legitimacy and
relevance of the electoral process, in the middle and
long terms an increase in qualitative participation is
of utmost importance to Yemen in order to strengthen the
democratic process. Key to this development is the need
to address illiteracy among both men and women as well
as to explain to the rural population in particular how
national representation is able to translate into
tangible practical results for the population as a
whole. It is in the main the misunderstanding of that
essential point in democratic representation that is
responsible for the apathy regarding participation in
the elections.
December 1997
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