Afronline – The Voice Of Africa

Five years ago, nobody would have imagined this scenario, but when “the Liberian Iron Lady” Sirleaf Johnson took power in 2005, a new trend of political outlook started to take place in Africa. Since then, a number of women of high calibre started to emerge from all corners of Africa, and in 2010 a real boom exploded.

At the beginning of this year, Ellen Johnson announced her candidacy for a second mandate in 2011 elections.

In Togo Brigitte Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson opened a new chapter in history in West African countries by running in the 4 March 2010 presidential election. And even though results are already public, she has won her personal victory: she is the first woman in 50 years to run the elections.

However, the most important 2010 elections will be held in Sudan in April. The biggest country of the continent will go to the polls after the end, in 2005, of the war which started twenty years ago between the North and the South, while Darfur is still in a precarious equilibrium after the 2003 crisis.

Among the candidates who will try to challenge the current President Omar el Bashir there is also Fatima Ahmed Abdelmahmoud, the first woman running for presidency in Sudan history. Leader of the Sudanese Socialist and Democratic Union party, she will run at the April presidential elections, the first after 24 years, since the day the current president Omar el Bashir took power with a coup d’etat.

She is 66 and was formerly president of the UNESCO headquarter in Sudan, but she was also the first female minister in 1974.

When the Sudanese tribunal decided to re-admit her among the candidates – she had been refused before – there was a huge crowd waiting for her and praising, as she could become the first female President of Sudan. An unrealistic perspective however. International experts say that el Bashir will win again. But Fatima said that her admission “is a great victory for Sudanese women”.

On the other side of Africa, she is not the president but is one of the most known and appreciated woma because of her strong opposition against Jacob Zuma and because of her social policies, which have brought into politics the spirit of civil society.  She is Hellen Zille, the only woman leading one of the nine provinces of South Africa, the country who will host the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Former mayor of Cape Town, Zille is the main leader of the opposition party, Democratic Alliance, and after the 2009 elections became president of the Western Cape province.

In 2007 Hellen was awarded as the “best mayor of the world”, an annual prize given by the City Mayor Project, which aim is to supervise the main cities’ mayors actions. She was awarded also because of the project she launched at the Green Point, the green area at the seafront of Cape of Good Hope. While the central government’s main worries were about the FIFA World Cup, Zille decided to negotiate, asking a new council houses area for the huge football stadium at the Green Point.

In Burundi Alice Nzomukunda, member of the Democratic Alliance for Renewal of Burundi party, has once been at the top of her country’s leadership before withdrawing from the place she was holding.

She is an ethnic Hutu who fought with the Conseil National Pour la Defense de la Democratie-Forces Pour la defense de la Democratie (CNDD-FDD) when it was a rebel movement. She continued to work with the CNDD-FDD after it became a political party in 2002. Named vice President of the National Assembly, she was expelled on 8 February 2008 from the CNDD-FDD “for internal disciplinary reasons”.

Ruwanda’s Victoire Ingabire Umuhonza is also one of the well-known women in Africa. She is the Chairperson of the Unified Democratic Forces (UDF), a coalition of Rwandan opposition parties, and was elected as the official candidate for the next presidential election in Rwanda, expected to take place in August 2010.

She is the pearl of Rwandese politics, while her country’s parliament is the only all over the world with a female majority: 45 seats out of 80 are occupied by women.

By Sammy Tujia and Emanuela Citterio – Afronline.org