POLITICS-SOUTH AFRICA: A Trying Passage for Women in the Ruling Party

By Stephanie Nieuwoudt Reprint | | Print |

Stephanie Nieuwoudt

CAPE TOWN, Dec 31 2007 (IPS) - The past weeks have been tumultuous for women in South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC).

On one hand, they end the year with a key gain in hand: the party’s acceptance that 50 percent of posts in its decision-making structures must be held by women (albeit with an exception made for the top six positions in the 86-member National Executive Committee, which feature just two women: Baleke Mbete, chairwoman, and Thandi Modise, deputy secretary-general). Previously, representation of women was set at a third of posts.

On the other, they find themselves serving under a president who has attracted the wrath of activists for his comments on AIDS and women – a president, moreover, whom the ANC Women’s League was instrumental in electing, and who may become head of the country during polls in 2009.

Jacob Zuma won leadership of the ANC earlier this month in a bruising battle that ousted head of state Thabo Mbeki from the senior ranks of the party. This was despite the threat of Zuma being taken to court over allegations of corruption linked to a multi-million dollar arms deal – claims that saw him dismissed as South Africa’s deputy president in 2005. A few days after his election, the new party president was indeed charged, with corruption, money laundering, racketeering and fraud.

The league’s decision came after years of steady resistance to gender inequality, something to which the ANC itself has not been immune. While the party was formed in 1912, women were only formally admitted as members in 1943. The league was set up in 1948.

In supporting Zuma the league endorsed a man who, while standing trial for the alleged rape of an HIV positive AIDS activist who was also a family friend (a charge for which he was acquitted), famously stated that he had taken a shower to reduce his risk of contracting HIV as a result of the unprotected sex. Zuma also implied that certain types of clothing worn by women can be construed as an invitation to sex.

“We are seeing a disappearance of women’s agency. The women of this country…did not use their agency to promote a woman to a position of leadership. Their vote has shown a weakness of the movement in reading the situation and protecting the gains made over decades,” Mohau Pheko, an independent political analyst and leading gender activist, told IPS.

Lisa Vetten, a researcher at the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre in South Africa’s commercial hub, Johannesburg, predicts that gender issues will slip down the ANC agenda under Zuma – while for Mbuyiselo Botha, general secretary of the South African Men’s Forum, the choice of Zuma shows the enduring power of patriarchy.

“Women in this country still think that men are ordained by God to lead them. What message did these women send to young girls looking for role models? Or to those young women who have aspirations of becoming leaders in this country?” Botha asked.

“We still have a long way to go before the issues of gender inequality are addressed fully.”

Mbeki had indicated that he would like to be succeeded by a woman, and also appointed a woman – former minerals and energy minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngucka – to be South Africa’s first female deputy president.

However, as political commentator Karima Brown noted in a radio interview, this support for gender equality failed to yield a much-needed “political dividend” for the president. The opposite held true, rather, with Zuma reportedly accusing the Mbeki camp of using the matter of gender for leverage in the succession race, rather than for true women’s empowerment.

The general-secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Zwelinzima Vavi, was futher reported as saying that parity was being pushed by “legendary womanisers” among Mbeki’s supporters to take advantage of women voted into power. COSATU is in political alliance with the ANC, and the South African Communist Party.

Former parliamentary speaker and ANC member Frene Ginwala was later quoted as saying that there were also legendary womanisers in the COSATU and Zuma camps who were conveniently escaping notice, and as questioning the extent to which women were present in COSATU’s leadership.

It’s a debate that is unlikely to subside, come 2008.