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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (fourth from the left) leads the first cabinet meeting of his government Jan. 28 in Athens. He's been criticized for selecting no women for senior positions. Petros Giannakouris/AP hide caption

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (fourth from the left) leads the first cabinet meeting of his government Jan. 28 in Athens. He's been criticized for selecting no women for senior positions.

Anastasia Giamali is a young, well-educated and ambitious woman. She's a regional politician for Syriza, the leftist party now running Greece, and a high-profile journalist with the party-affiliated newspaper.

But last month, when Amparo Rubiales, the Spanish feminist criticized Syriza for appointing only men to the new cabinet, Giamali said it reflected how Greece still clings to its traditional, patriarchal roots.

"It's still a male-dominated society," Giamali says. "It's hard for a woman to be involved in high-end politics, because a woman must be a mother, must be working, must take care of the whole family more than a man would in Greece.

Few in Greece commented on the lack of women in the senior cabinet. Greece ranks near the bottom in the European Union in the number of women participating in politics, and never has had a female prime minister. Men still dominate parliament.

A group of young women at an Athenian cafe say they joined Syriza because, compared to the other parties, it has more women in its ranks and more elected women in parliament. Still, says Lina Theodorou, a 25-year-old lawyer, most party leaders are men.

"Men are accepted with all of their flaws, but women are not," she says. "Women are often categorized as being too shy or too loud or whatever for some big post. It's a problem in Greece, and it's a problem in our party."

The idea that Greek men are born leaders is even taught in school, says Natasa Spanoudi, a 25-year-old teacher.

"In history books about the Greek revolution, for instance, we're taught that the men with the big mustaches and giant muscles are the ones that saved us," she says. "Not the women, who fought too and just as bravely."

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Even As Progressives Take Lead In Greece, Women Remain Out ...

Nigerias lead opposition party has accused other politicians of asking the country's Muslim voters to cast their ballots in favor of Muslim candidates in the national elections scheduled for next month, according to local media reports. On Thursday, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress, issued a statement saying that those who had long attempted to use religion to divide voters were doing so once again.

"They are hoping that by further inflaming passion with the highly emotive issue of religion, they can revive their shriveling political fortunes, the statement said. Without appearing to target specific individuals or parties, it accused some politicians of circulating satanic leaflets that would pit Christians against Muslims. Nigerians should not be taken in by this cheap plot, the statement added.

Nigeria's People's Democratic Party, however, responded to the statement as if it were being accused of creating such a plot, saying that the All Progressives Congress' presidential candidate could benefit from such behavior and was merely trying to find a scapegoat, ostensibly for religious divides in the country. According to NGRguardiannews.com, the People's Democratic Party released a statement of its own that said, "The PDP needs neither religious nor ethnic cleavages to campaign and win the 2015 presidential elections."

Although some of its more vague claims did not appear directed at the People's Democratic Party, the statement by the All Progressives Congress did highlight a previous situation where it said its opponent had used religion to try to garner votes. In early February, the vice president of Nigeria, Mohammed Namadi Sambo, urged voters not to be deceived by religion when voting in elections. During a campaign for the Peoples Democratic Party, he said, When people bring the issue of religion to deceive you, our party has more Muslims than APC [All Progressives Congress]. He then compared the number of Muslims in the Peoples Democratic Partys leadership with the lack of Muslims in the All Progressive Congress leadership, asking, Which between the parties has more Muslims?

The All Progressives Congress said in its statement that its party was more diverse than the Peoples Democratic Party had portrayed. We ask Nigerians to disregard anyone peddling religion as a tool for securing votes in any part of the country. Faith is a personal thing to individuals and no responsible government will seek to use religion to divide the people, the party said.

Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups and has something of a geographic religious divide, with the south of the country being predominantly Christian and most Muslims living in the north. Bloomberg has reported that in Nigerian elections, ethnicity and religion historically havebeen influential among voters than actual policies and platforms, saying that politicians stir up ethnic and religious sentiments in their favor.

National elections in Nigeria are set for March 28, postponed from Feb. 14 after military leaders said they would not be able to provide security for the elections, as it was fighting Boko Haram, the militant group that controls much of the northeast of the country. On Wednesday, the Nigerian army claimed that its forces had killed more than 300 of Boko Haram's militants.

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Nigeria Elections 2015 Muslims And Christians: Religion Being Used To Divide Voters, Opposition Party Says

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has advised Governor Ayodele Fayose to stop attacking the nations judiciary, warning him against contempt of court.

The party, while reacting to Fayoses comments against the court on its ruling that barred the President from deploying the military for election, said the governor was uncomfortable because he had plans to use fake soldiers for the forthcoming general elections in Ekiti.

Ekiti State Publicity Secretary of the APC, Taiwo Olatubosun, in a statement, on Thursday, said that the governors utterances smacked of contempt of court and brazen attempt to blackmail the judges in the course of performing their legal duties.

He described the governors attack on the judges as a continuation of his assault on the judiciary, recalling that PDP thugs attacked the judges of the Ekiti State High Court, tore their clothes and tore court records in the Chief Judges office while the CJs secretary was beaten.

Olatubosun said, We had already raised the alarm that Ekiti State PDP had been sewing fake military uniforms for thugs to impersonate soldiers during the coming elections to help its candidates win.

The courts rulings are deep blows to that fraud. These thugs are already being housed in Adesua Lodge of the Government House where they take off every day to attack opponents and destroy their posters.

We have always insisted that Fayose can never survive in any system where the law works. He does not believe in the rule of law.

How can a Federal High Court in Jos and the nations Appeal Court make a pronouncement on the same subject banning the Federal Government from deploying soldiers for elections and it now becomes the lot of only Fayose, among the nations politicians, to raise objection castigating the judges?

Olatubosun added that the governors actions so far did not portray him as a leader ready to work within approved standard of the law and civilised conduct.

He said, To demonstrate his depth of desperation, he went ahead to denigrate the Appeal Court judges as APC allies in the judiciary who can never stop President Goodluck Jonathan from deploying soldiers for elections.

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APC flays Fayose for attacking ACourt justices

Senator Musiliu Obanikoro

Members of the All Progressives Congress in the Senate on Thursday said they were resolved to stop the re-appointment of Senator Musiliu Obanikoro as minister following his alleged indictment in the use of the military to rig the Ekiti governorship election in June last year.

Spokesperson of the APC Senate Caucus, Babafemi Ojudu, who spoke in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja, explained that other senators from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party were also being co-opted into the struggle.

He said APC senators had started mobilising themselves to frustrate Obanikoros clearance and approval for fresh appointment.

He said, We will do everything possible to stop Obanikoro from being cleared as a minister. Ordinarily, being a former senator he is expected to take a bow and receive automatic clearance but in the present circumstance he has serious issues to clear.

In a normal society, he should have been picked by security agents and quizzed over his involvement in the criminal act of using the military to subvert a democratic process.

This is a man who used the name of President Goodluck Jonathan to intimidate and harass military officers. He even threatened to determine the fate of the soldier, as the then Minister of State for Defence, if he failed to carry out the alleged rigging plot.

It is not only the APC senators that are involved in this struggle; senators from other political parties who are genuine democrats have pledged their loyalty for the noble cause.

Meanwhile, Ojudu, representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District, has said that federal lawmakers from his state would set in motion procedures for the taking over of the legislative activities of the Ekiti State House of Assembly.

Ojudu explained that both chambers of the federal legislature would have taken over the responsibility of the state legislators if the Senate President, David Mark, had not halted the process in December last year.

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Well stop Obanikoros ministerial bid APC senators

The All Progressives Congress has alleged a fresh plot by desperate politicians to circulate leaflets in mosques and churches, asking Muslims to only vote for Muslims in the forthcoming elections.

In a statement in Lagos on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the plot was in line with the track record of those who had consistently used religion to divide Nigerians in order to feather their political nest.

They are hoping that by further inflaming passion with the highly emotive issue of religion, they can revive their shrivelling political fortunes. That is why they have devised the latest strategy of pitching Christians against Muslims through the circulation of satanic leaflets. Nigerians should not be taken in by this cheap plot, it said.

APC reminded Nigerians of the most recent attempt to use religion as a tool to win votes, citing the case of Vice President Namadi Sambo saying the PDP had more Muslims than the APC, and that the APC Vice Presidential candidate is a pastor, who runs 5,000 churches.

It must baffle every right-thinking Nigerian what the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stands to gain by his resort to base instincts. It is more baffling against the background of the fact that it was his party, the PDP, that first labelled our party, the APC, a Muslim party.

Not even when the APC elected a Christian as its National Chairman, supported by many party officials, who are also Christians, did they back off from their incautious claim. It did not occur to them that our party is more religiously diverse than they have sought to portray it to Nigerians, the party said.

It said while the APC had been campaigning on issues of relevance to Nigerians, including how Nigerians would be put back to work, how the citizens would be better protected, how they would be weaned from their forced dependence on electricity generators and how the partys governors have delivered the dividends of democracy in their states, those on the other side have been trading in negative and inciting campaigns of the most primitive kind.

APC added, We ask Nigerians to disregard anyone peddling religion as a tool for securing votes in any part of the country. Faith is a personal thing to individuals and no responsible government will seek to use religion to divide the people, APC said.

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APC decries politicians plot to campaign in mosques, churches