Politics Archives - Page 58 of 60

Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr

When she was elected mayor of Freetown in May 2018 (winning almost 60% of the votes), Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr was the city’s first female mayor in nearly 40 years.
Aki-Sawyerr decided to run for mayor after overseeing Operation Clean Freetown, a government initiative that was part of a large post-Ebola recovery effort that began in 2016. The project’s goal was to “[reduce] the risk of epidemics by improving solid waste management in the city.”
“I came face to face with how bad things were” in Freetown, she later said. “I decided I had to run.”
Continuing this work in office, her first priority was to identify the locations with the most egregiously clogged gutters that were missed in Operation Clean Freetown and have them cleared to enable water flow.
While earning her bachelor’s degree in Economics at Fourah Bay College, Aki-Sawyerr was active with AIESEC (the International Association of Students in Economics and Management) and became the first African on the organisation’s Brussels-based International Exchange Committee in 1988.
Aki-Sawyerr’s work during Sierra Leone’s Ebola crisis was recognized with an Ebola Gold Medal by Ernest Bai Koroma in December 2015. In January 2016, she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.

Hanan Ashrawi

Hanan Daoud Mikhael Ashrawi is a Palestinian politician, activist and scholar who served as a member of the Leadership Committee and as an official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process, starting with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991.

Anneli Jäätteenmäki

Anneli Tuulikki Jäätteenmäki is a Finnish politician who became the first female Prime Minister of Finland on 17 April 2003, but resigned only months later on 18 June 2003, due to accusations that she had lied to Parliament and the public about how she had acquired confidential Foreign Ministry documents which she used for political purposes during the election campaign. She had 1987 previously bee elected to the Finnish Parliament (Eduskunta) in 1987 and served as Minister of Justice from 1994 to 1995. She was elected as chairwoman of the Centre Party of Finland from 18 June 2000 to 5 October 2003 and served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Finland from 2004 until 2019.

Ruby Thoma

Ruby Thoma is a Nauruan politician who became the country’s first woman Member of Parliament when she was elected in 1986. Throughout her career, she was the only woman in the Nauruan Parliament – no other woman was elected until Charmaine Scotty in the 2013 general election.
She had previously unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for the 1983 general election, and was supported by women who believed that voters would benefit from having an educated woman, who would defend the interests of women and children, in Parliament. She encountered resistance, including from female voters who told her that politics should be left to men.
She was appointed Minister for Finance, from December 1986 until the government was brought down upon losing the confidence of Parliament in August 1989. Thoma kept her seat in Parliament in the subsequent general election, but lost in the 1992 election. She founded the People’s Movement Association to oppose what she considered wasteful public spending by President Bernard Dowiyogo’s government. She was re-elected to Parliament in 1995, but her political career ended when she lost her seat in 1997.

Nyimasata Sanneh-Bojang

Nyimasata Sanneh-Bojang was a Gambian politician and activist. She became the first woman to be elected to the Gambian National Assembly when she won the seat of Northern Kombo for the People’s Progressive Party in 1982.

Jemimah Gecaga

Jemimah Gecaga was the first woman to serve in the legislature of Kenya. In 1952, she founded Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, an organisation that continues to advocate for women’s rights and gender equity in Kenya to this day. In 1958, she was nominated to the Legislative Council in Kenya and became the first woman to serve in the country’s parliament of the country, serving until 1962. She later served as President of the YWCA in Kenya, lectured in home economics at Jeanes School (The Kenya School of Government) and worked as a director at Skyline Advertising. In 1969, she was again nominated as a member of parliament in 1969, serving until 1974.

Alba Roballo

Alba Roballo was a prominent Afro-Uruguayan lawyer, poet and politician, who was Uruguay’s first woman Cabinet member, first woman Culture Minister, and first woman elected to the (then collective) Municipal Council of Montevideo, Uruguay.

Tawakkol Karman

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman is a Yemeni journalist, politician, and human rights activist.

Zinaida Greceanîi

Zinaida Greceanîi is a Moldovan politician who was the country’s first female prime minister (31 March 2008 to 14 September 2009) and later became Speaker of the Parliament on 8 June 2019. She is the leader of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) and was previously a member of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM). She was also the second female Communist head of government in Europe, the firstbeing Premier Milka Planinc of Yugoslavia, and has been referred to by her collogues in PSRM as the “Moldovan Margaret Thatcher”. While prime minister, Greceanîi increased the number of women ministers in her Cabinet from 2 to 5 and followed up on laws of gender equality, but resigned after only a year and a half, saying she coudl not hold the posts of prime minister and member of parliament at the same time.

Yennenga

A legendary figure in West Africa, Yennenga has come to symbolise the epitome of the female warrior, a free and independent woman.