By Tupuola Terry Tavita

The record speaks for itself.

Since independence 50 years ago, only one female government chief executive has ever successfully run for office.

She is former Education director Aiono Fanaafi Le Tagaloa who held one of the A’ana seats nearly 30 years ago.

Arguments therefore to let the supposed natural rollover of women from top public service positions to parliament is groundless and unfounded.

Though there has been an increasing number of women holding government CEO positions in recent years, none of the five this publication spoke to this week has any ambition of running for office.

Most say they will go back to their professional fields when their contracts are not renewed or enter the private sector.

And it is no big surprise.

Of the four former women CEOs who recently left the public service, one has joined her husband’s law firm, another has taken up a student counsel post at the National University, one has opened a consultancy firm and the other has, too, joined her husband’s coconut oil production company.

None ran in last year’s elections.

Of the two women in Parliament, one is a career politician while the other spent most of her working life in New Zealand. The other two who didn’t make it back last March’s general elections – one was a school teacher and the other a businesswoman.

None of them occupied any top public service management positions.

So where is this supposed rollover of women from the public service top echelons to Parliament coming from?

And it doesn’t stop there.

In the 2006 general elections, 19 women vied for office. Last year, that number dropped to just nine. There could possibly be none in the next general elections if government does not do anything about it. All the statistics point to a continued decline of women representation in Parliament.

Criticism that the proposed legislation is aimed at pandering women voters is petty and unfair. This is about empowering women not politicking.

This column does not speak for government, but perhaps those who make these decisions have been in Parliament long enough to realize the declining voice of women in the House, and the dangers and concerns that come with it.

That perhaps they also know that they are in a position to swing back that gender pendulum, now or never.

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