I recently joined the Green Party and their women’s branch. Voting is in progress for the next main people (I forget the titles, there’s quite a few). Today I received an email basically saying that the candidates were asked 3 questions by the women’s branch, to which replies have been received. BUT they can’t publish them as the questions needed approval. Voting ends in a couple of days. This sounds really bizarre to me. Is this ‘approval’ a way of shutting up women? Surely anything can be asked. The questions seem fine to me. And if the candidates have replied then surely it’s fine to ask questions? What’s going on here?
Here is the pertinent part of the email…
‘To this end the Green Party Women Committee posed three crucial questions to candidates (see below), many of whom replied with thoughtful and informative responses. However, we were informed that our questions needed to be approved by the Election Returning Officer (ERO) and Standing Orders Committee (SOC) and despite us initiating this process on 12th August, this approval has not yet been granted.
We very much regret therefore that we are unable to publish candidates' responses as we have not been given permission, and we would like to apologise to the candidates for this procedural failing which is out of our hands.
If GPW members have any queries as to how this has come about, please do ask the relevant bodies [email protected] and [email protected].
Our three questions were based on the main areas of concern consistently expressed by GPW members, in every forum made available to them (GPW Hustings, Spaces, Whova @ Conference & Committee Meeting open mics):
The 3 questions asked of candidates were:
- What do you believe is the most important change needed to address violence against women and girls? And how would you action that?
- It is increasingly acknowledged that the health concerns of women are often ignored or misunderstood. What aspect of improving women's health would you wish to promote?
- In what specific ways do you intend to promote the needs and interests of women as a sex (as per the legally protected characteristic) within and outside the Party?’