POLITICS-ZIMBABWE: Women Mourn their Lack of Political Clout

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Wilson Johwa

BULAWAYO, Sep 4 2003 (IPS) - As crucial municipal polls got underway in Zimbabwe on August 30 and 31, gender activists could only marvel at how little inroads women have made in politics.

Of the outgoing 333 urban councilors in the country, a mere 14 percent were women. The highest number was in Harare which had six female councilors out of a total of 50. Women constitute 54 percent of the population in Zimbabwe.

From a pool of over 500 candidates who contested the elections, 67 or about 10 percent were women. Even fewer won the elections.

For women’s activists, the irony is that the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), fielded very few women, claiming women are less willing to stand due to electoral violence and intimidation.

"The MDC has actually been discouraging women from standing, blaming violence yet women have been bearing the brunt of that violence anywhere," says Janah Ncube, the director of the lobby group Women in Politics Support Unit. "They are not gender sensitive and should not hide behind the issue of violence."

In the city of Chitungwiza, women disappeared from the final list of the MDC’s candidates in what Ncube sees as proof that women were discouraged from standing. What has piqued women is that the MDC claims to be a better and more progressive alternative to the ruling party which is in decline, especially in the urban centres.

In Harare and Bulawayo, the ruling party won not a single council seat. Even the two cities’ mayors belong to the MDC. Ncube says as far as women are concerned the ruling Zanu-PF party has been a better party, fielding three female mayoral candidates and allowing many more women to stand as councillors.

However, all the three women mayoral candidates lost as did the majority of Zanu-PF’s council candidates. "In terms of women’s participation we are in mourning," Ncube says. "Where Zanu-PF has won we are actually seeing more women candidates."

MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi says due to widespread political violence in the country the party was unable even to fulfill the 30 percent quota spelt out in its own constitution. In Gwanda town, 200 kilometres south-east of Bulawayo, four of the party’s 12 candidates were women but "all of them dropped out because of intimidation."

Nyathi says as mothers, women are much more vulnerable to intimidation and violence than men. The result, he says, is that they also need about twice as much security – whose cost is prohibitive.

But Ncube maintains it is only the MDC’s male members who are provided with security and never the women. "We are not discouraging women candidates but we know what it takes," says Nyathi who accuses some Zanu-PF women candidates of participating in electoral violence.

Political violence and intimidation is the new bane in Zimbabwean politics. The NGO, Crisis In Zimbabwe, recently said poor black women have borne the brunt of increasing sexual violence at the hands of ruling party militia.

Lillian Kandemiri is a Zanu-PF candidate who lost in Bulawayo. Hours before the results were announced, she was presiding over the distribution of food in ward 26, a working class area where she was a candidate. Since the staple maize is now a scarce and costly commodity throughout the country, even urban dwellers have been getting subsidized maize from the state Grain Marketing Board. Beneficiaries simply have to prove that they are rate payers.

The opposition has accused the ruling party of using food to buy votes. But even this campaign advantage did not give Kandemiri the victory she desired. On this day, most of those collecting maize through this process, which Kandemiri said she initiated, were women.

An ex-teacher, Kandemiri said over the years men have done nothing for women. She had intended to assist women in the ward, most of whom are housewives, find income-generating projects.

"As women for a long time we saw ourselves as worth less than men," she said. "We have to keep educating women, telling them that they are as good as men."

Kandemiri was one of Zanu-PF’s 46 female candidates who made up 15 percent of the total. The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had only six percent.

"The situation is absolutely bad," says Ncube. "Out of these few women we don’t expect changes that impact on the generality of the gender." She says Zimbabwe’s political system is insensitive to women’s priorities and continues to marginalize their concerns.

"Our studies have proved that the more women we place in these spaces, the more they can guard against policies which work against the gender," she says.

There are even fewer women in rural district councils. In the 150-seat Parliament, women constitute 10,6 percent of the members. "There is very little they can do," Ncube says.

The polarization in the House along party lines is also very limiting. Even then, the women MPs have managed to form their own caucus which recently raised the motion on the crippling shortage of cotton wool in the country.

Ncube says studies had shown that 60 percent of urban women use cotton wool for sanitary purposes, thus the continuing shortage of the product has forced women to revert to unhygienic alternatives. However, the motion has since been "parked" with no final resolution.

In a 1997 declaration, heads of state and government of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) committed themselves to a 30 percent target for female representation in their national political bodies by 2000. Three years after the deadline, women have little to show.

"It is very disappointing to see that the government has not put in place measures to ensure that the target which we, as a country through our President, put our signature to," Ncube says.

This declaration on Gender and Development called for the repeal of all discriminatory laws and the amendment of constitutions where necessary, to advance the status of women.

Happygirl Mberi, the chairperson of the Women In Local Government Forum, says it is not merely a question of how many women are in leadership. "As far as I’m concerned, I’m not unhappy about the situation on the ground," she says, pointing out that women have come a long way given the country’s political history and culture of male dominance.

"You cannot achieve everything over night," says Mberi. "You can’t get into leadership just because you are a woman. You have to be trained and be visible. She says as a group women still play a big part in political strategy and make a difference in any political scenario.

It is now time for them to stand out as individuals. In this process, says Mberi, women need leadership skills, confidence and role models. (ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/WL/IP/WJ/SM/03)

= 09040534 ORP003 NNNN