Democratic National Alliance (DNA) candidate Dr. Madlene Sawyer said she closed the 'yellow door' when the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) refused to nominate her because of her sex.
Dr. Sawyer, who was the unsuccessful PLP Delaporte candidate during the 1997 general election, claimed that despite promises to do otherwise, the leadership of the PLP denied her application for candidacy for the upcoming election because she is a woman. However, the PLP branded that claim as "absolute rubbish".
Dr. Sawyer is a former chairman of the PLP's Women's Association and will run for the DNA in Southern Shores.
"In 2007, I applied for a nomination," she said during the DNA's Kemp Road Street meeting on Wednesday night.
"All along I was told, 'Don't worry, you got it, you [are] straight.' So I'm going along thinking that I'm straight. They said they're going to form a new constituency, 'you will get one of them'. I [didn't] get one yet.
"So I dusted myself off and I wrote an application in May 2008 asking for [nomination] in this election. I repeated the letter in 2009. I said I don't want them to forget so let me write the letter again. I was turned around.
"I went to the candidates committee; I made phone calls; I made visits; I wrote e-mails and then I was told by the leadership that I have to understand that this is a man's world. That's what they told me. Then they told me that the electorate only wants males.
"So anyway, after all of that, the straw broke the camel's back and I knew I had to move on. So I closed the yellow door and I walked out."
However, PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts said that is a baseless claim.
"Her points don't make any sense," Roberts said. "The PLP ran her in 1997.  We are running women now. Dr. Sawyer went off to do studies and came back.  When we went through the process we found that we were not able to accommodate Dr. Sawyer. But we wish her well in her future endeavors."
The PLP has five female candidates.
Sawyer said she will not be a part of any party that does not plan to move the country forward.
She said her research has shown her that the democracies of the world that include women around the table are the best democracies.

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