Chronicle Editor
Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, Senior Reporter
WOMEN constitute only 21 percent of candidates who filed their papers at the Nomination Court held in Bulawayo and Matabeleland North last week for the March 26 by-elections.
Statistics show that from a total of 61 candidates who filed their papers for the forthcoming by-elections, only 13 are women in the two provinces.
Of the 13 women, only one registered to contest in the National Assembly in Bulawayo’s Pumula constituency and the rest for local authority vacant seats.
Bulawayo has two constituencies, Pumula and Nkulumane and nine council seats that are vacant.
In a public notice, Zec revealed that as of January 8, the country had 5,6 million registered voters countrywide.
Women constitute most of the registered voters with more than 3 million on the voter’s roll.
From Zec statistics, Bulawayo has the lowest number of registered voters with 254 630 followed by Matabeleland South with 259 689 registered voters and Matabeleland North standing at 335 851.
Despite having the majority of registered voters, women shunned the nomination court for the by-elections set for March 26 this year.
Zimbabwe has progressive gender equality laws to support women’s representation and participation in public administration, politics and decision making, yet they are not fully implemented.
Although important progress has been made in women’s representation in national politics, the results still fall short of international commitments, and progress towards equality is far too slow.
As the 2019 Global Gender Gap report notes, the largest disparity is in women’s political participation. In Sub-Saharan Africa it will take at least 135 years to close the gender gap based on current trends.
In an interview, Bulawayo Zec provincial elections officer Mr Innocent Ncube said women should register as candidates as they have rights to do so.
“We are worried to see that only a few women came up to register their nominations last week despite the fact that millions of them are registered voters. We call on women to rise and be counted as well. From about 52 candidates who came forward, only 12 were women and this is not a good trend, we need women to fully participate in politics,” said Mr Ncube.
In Matabeleland North, nine men filed their documents for the Binga North and Tsholotsho South constituencies and no female candidate.
Genderlinks Zimbabwe country director Ms Priscilla Maphosa said it was the responsibility of all political parties to support and nominate female candidates.
“The decision on who files papers during nomination court is made by political parties not individuals. Women are not interested because there is less or no support from political parties for starters. We encourage political parties to take seriously the issue of political participation of women because if political parties do not take a stand, women will also take a back step and remain in the terraces,” said Ms Maphosa.
“They cannot just let the opportunity pass by hence the onus lies on political parties. They should be supportive of women’s political participation.
They should come up with policies and strategies that promote women’s participation. In fact, they should be at the forefront of supporting women political participation because women are only supported by their family and friends and not the parties they represent.”
Ms Sukulwenkosi Mhlanga, a gender activist who also represents young women with disabilities said they had missed the opportunity to submit papers as they were not registered to vote.
“Before we delve on the issue of women representing only a small portion of those who filed papers, we should consider that a majority of people with disabilities (PWDs) will not participate in the by-elections as they failed to register before January 8.
We call on ZEC and all responsible authorities to consider our plight because we have rights to participate in all these public activities and I know we have capable PWDs who can contest and win,” she said.
“We also yearn for the day when women are going to rise in numbers and participate in politics since we account for a majority in terms of population and registered voters. This development should not be repeated in 2023, we expect to see more women contesting.” – @thamamoe
Online Reporter