It may not have been the 50 per cent she hoped for but Hazel Brown said there had been a two per cent increase in the number of women elected as councillors.Brown is the co-ordinator of the Network of NGOs for the Advancement of Women.In a release yesterday, the network said 46 women were elected in the October 21 local government elections, which meant that overall there was now 34 per cent women among councillors.
It said Terry Ince, who managed the project to prepare the women, observed that of the 13 of the women who participated and won, 12 came from the People's National Movement (PNM) camp and one from the United National Congress (UNC).The network had undertaken to train women interested in being representatives for the local government elections to ensure they were well prepared to become councillors and aldermen.
The group had said it would have liked 50 per cent of elected councillors to be women as well as 50 per cent of aldermen under the new proportional representation system.It said a gender analysis of the results showed the PNM was ahead in securing positions for women. The PNM elected 28 women councillors, UNC got 16 and the Independent Liberal Party (ILP) and Congress of the People (COP) secured one each, it said.
It added: "A head count of the women nominated to become aldermen shows 75 women were nominated by the various parties to vie for the 56 available seats in the 14 municipal councils. Again the PNM is ahead, since it named 15 women to fill the 36 positions of aldermen to which that party is entitled."The network said the party also led in featuring more young women, which it described as being extremely timely and important for the women's movement.
However, the network said, despite the fact that 41 per cent of the aldermen elected by the party are women, Port-of-Spain was unable to find a woman for mayor. It added that the aldermen to be selected by the UNC, ILP and COP were not yet known.
The network said: "No women were elected at the polls for the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation. If no women are chosen as aldermen by either the PNM or UNC, that local government body will return to the days when there were no women in the particular council."Both parties are entitled to two aldermen each, as indicated in the list provided by the Elections and Boundaries Commission.
"Among the women nominated by the UNC who could emerge as aldermen in that corporation, three of them were trained by the Network of NGOs to serve in the council.