tawandamusarurwa
Fatima Bulla-Musakwa and Richard Muponde
WOMEN’s rights organisations have called on the nation to reflect on some of the factors hindering women from participating in politics following a decline in the number of female candidates who sailed to victory in the recent harmonised elections.
Final results released by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) for the August 23 and 24 harmonised elections show that only 22 female candidates were successfully elected as Members of Parliament out of the 209 seats that were up for grabs in the National Assembly.
Of these, 12 won on a ZANU PF ticket while 10 represented the Citizens Coalition for Change.
Although there are 60 seats reserved for females in the National Assembly, under the women’s quota, there are concerns that the number of female politicians will continue to decline, if no deliberate interventions are made.
There was only one female candidate among this year’s 11 presidential aspirants, compared to four in 2018.
Experts say fear of political violence, political parties’ failure to implement gender balance policies and exorbitant nomination fees were some of the challenges women faced in this year’s polls.
Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE) executive director Ms Sitabile Dewa said: “There should be a deliberate effort by all stakeholders to ensure gender equality by rejecting party lists that do not have proportional representation, also known as the zebra format.
‘‘Citizens must vote for political parties, not individuals, as this also insulates women from political violence and vote buying.”
Ms Dewa said the Electoral Act should be aligned with the Constitution to enhance gender equality.
“Political parties must adopt gender equality provisions into their constitutions and field women in constituencies where they have a fair chance of winning,” she said.
Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC) chairperson Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe said the first-past-the- post voting system elbows out women as they face stiff competition against better-resourced and experienced male counterparts.
“There either has to be full proportional representation like exists in the Senate or 105 seats are reserved for women to compete among themselves in the National Assembly. What it means is that people have to vote for political parties and political parties have to present party lists like they do for the Senate, which is on a zebra basis, so that when they get seats, they allocate them on that zebra basis,” Commissioner Mukahanana-Sangarwe said.
Prior to the elections, ZGC and WALPE, among other women organisations, conducted training programmes to capacitate women to take up political leadership positions.
Campaigns to end violence against women in politics and electoral processes were also conducted.
Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe national co-ordinator Ms Sally Ncube said there is need for clear candidate selection mechanisms to ensure a fair playing field for women.
“Political parties also need to respect constitutional provisions on women’s rights, gender equality and parity,” said Ms Ncube.
In Africa, Rwanda leads in terms of women representation in politics, with 61,3 percent holding parliamentary seats, while 55 percent have ministerial positions.
South Africa has 42 percent of women holding parliamentary seats, while in Namibia, women have 44 percent of the legislatorial slots.
Online Reporter