2015 Presidential Election: Where Are The Women?

By Banji Ojewale

In politics if you want anything said ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman – Margret Hilda Thatcher, ex-British Prime Minister

Last year the government in Romania heeded this counsel from the late British leader, Baroness Thatcher. The authorities, gravely worried by high profile corruption slowly killing the country, appointed a woman, Laura Codruta Kovesi, to man the nation’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA). Within a very short time this 41-year-old 1995 law graduate has turned the  formerly  quiescent agency into a viable attack dog mauling down those who had themselves been bringing down the economy and politics of Romania with their corrupt practices.

*Laura Codruta Kovesi

She has become the most feared public office holder on account of her exploits in an attempt to do what was thought to be impossible: battling graft in high places to a standstill and arresting its spread. Although as in Nigeria, she is horrified that the citizens have expressed  distaste for corruption, they still keep voting for politicians suspected or convicted of larceny.  “ It is extremely difficult to explain this contrast,” Kovesi laments.

But according to an international news magazine report last week, this depressing situation has not discouraged  the woman. A New York Times writer, Andrew Higgins, says: “Since Ms. Kovesi took over D.N.A last year, what was a trickle of high-profile arrests and prosecutions has become a flood. Nearly all have ended in convictions, with her prosecutors recording a success rate of over 90 percent.