admin
Herald Reporter
WITH the division of the 60 seats reserved for women and elected by proportional representation in each province, the final composition of the National Assembly is 197 seats for Zanu-PF, 70 for MDC-T, two for the MDC, and one independent. This gives Zanu-PF just under 73 percent of the total seats in the National Assembly but well over the two thirds majority of 180 seats.
The National Assembly comprises 210 constituencies, of which Zanu-PF won 160, or more than 76 percent of the total, MDC-T won 49 and an independent candidate won one. But for the life of the first two Parliaments, the new Constitution has provision for an extra 60 seats, all reserved for women, and divided six for each province. Each province’s block of six is divided in proportion to the number of votes each party’s constituency candidates won.
The extra seats were added after the constitution drafters found that despite a lot of progress over the years in building up the number of women elected to Parliament, there was still a tendency to field a majority of male candidates, especially in the most winnable seats for a party.
As usual with a PR formula, seats tend to be more evenly divided than on first past the post. This was very strongly seen in Matabeleland South where Zanu-PF swept the constituency seats, but in many cases with small majorities and in several areas with less than 50 percent of the vote against the MDC formations. So the PR produced a different result, three Zanu-PF, two MDC-T and one MDC members.
The two largest parties, while having “strongholds” also have sufficient support in the other party’s “strongholds” to ensure that on PR they can win at least one seat.
Thus, Zanu-PF and MDC-T have at least one of the special women MPs in every provincial contingent and neither scored any provincial routs, even when they won all National Assembly constituency seats in a province.
Online Reporter