POLITICS-NAMIBIA: Farewell, the 2005 Gender Target

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nashilongo Gervasius

WINDHOEK, Nov 27 2004 (IPS) - In the aftermath of this month’s general elections, gender imbalances in government still pose a challenge in Namibia.

As expected, Namibia’s minister for lands and resettlement – Hifikepunye Pohamba – swept to an easy victory in last week’s presidential poll, while the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) maintained its parliamentary majority in the legislative vote.

But, hopes that Namibia would reach a target set by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) of having women gain 30 percent of parliamentary seats by 2005 were dashed. (This target was laid out in the 1997 SADC Declaration on Gender and Development, which stipulates that women should occupy 30 percent of decision-making posts in government by 2005.)

Eighteen of the 72 legislators in the new parliament – 25 percent of lawmakers – will be women, a slight decrease from the 26.4 per cent in the current National Assembly. However, these figures could increase if Pohamba includes women amongst the six non-voting members of the assembly that he is entitled to appoint after being sworn in next March.

Ironically, women made up 52.4 per cent of voters for the Nov. 15 and 16 elections.

Members of parliament (MPs) are elected to Namibia’s National Assembly through a system of proportional representation, which is widely supposed to offer women a better chance of getting legislative seats than the “first past the post” system.

With the latter, a candidate simply has to win more votes than his or her competitors to gain a seat. In the case of proportional representation, seats are allocated according to the percentage of the national vote that political parties garner.

Going into the elections, most of the nine registered political parties appeared to be making the right noises concerning the SADC gender target.

The United Democratic Front (UDF) led the way in this regard by having 16 women candidates out of total of 30 on its party list; this amounted to a 53.3 percent representation of women.

The Congress of Democrats (CoD) had 20 women out of 52 candidates (a 38.5 percent representation), the Republican Party 11 women out of 30 candidates (36.7 percent) and the Namibia Movement for Democratic Change nine women out of 25 candidates (36 percent). The Monitor Action Group also had 36 percent of its candidates as women.

In the case of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, this figure was 35 percent – while SWAPO included 22 women among its 72 candidates (31 per cent). Women accounted for 29 percent of the names on the National Unity Democratic Organisation’s list, although only nine of the 45 candidates named by the South West Africa National Union (a mere 20 percent) were women.

But even though political parties put women on their lists, these candidates were often placed so low that their chances of being elected were minimal.

SWAPO had only 15 women among its 55 successful candidates, while a further three women from two other political parties (the UDF and the CoD) were also voted into office.

The total number of women who occupied places in the top ten slots of each list was just 23. While the UDF nominated six women for the top ten places on its list and the CoD four, the drubbing that the opposition received at the polls meant that the attempt by these parties to increase women’s representation had little effect.

In the case of SWAPO, says Professor William Lindeke of the University of Namibia’s Political Science Department, “The delegates, as party members, voted by election who was to be in the list – and those who were more likely to be picked up were those who have high profiles.”

The fact that men and women in Namibia traditionally lack equal access to educational and economic opportunities appears to be one of the factors behind the poor showing of women in this party election.

“To be in the party list you have to be highly visible, well educated – and traditionally women are not that,” observes Lindeke.

Notes women’s rights activist Liz Frank, “Politics is about power and money. It’s a male game, it is an old boys’ network – and that’s why we need a new girls’ network to make changes.”

“NGOs (non-governmental organisations), churches, citizens and the media have to hold government accountable. For them (Namibia’s leaders) it is easy to sign a document, but the implementation is a challenge,” she adds, in reference to the SADC declaration on Gender and Development, and other regional and international protocols on women.

Echoing Frank’s sentiments, Eunice Iipinge, the secretary general of SWAPO’s Women’s Council and head of the Gender Research Unit at the University of Namibia, said: “They (political leaders) go out and sign protocols, so they should implement them.”

“There is a lip service going on, there is a political thing going on. There is a tendency of signing things that are not implemented at all; decisions are made at political level, but not on a national level,” she added.

Prior to the announcement of results for the general elections, Iipinge had expressed dissatisfaction at the number of women candidates fielded, and the position of women on party lists. The placement of women on lists risked being “window dressing” that was undertaken in a bid to attract women’s votes, she claimed.

“Women are included or placed in lists as a way of buying votes from women. Parties neglect the quality and inputs of women,” noted Iipinge.

A “specific quota system of 30 percent or more women seats in parliament” would go some way towards redressing gender imbalances in the legislature, she added.

Graham Hopwood, a political analyst, also believes that a quota system for women would be useful, as it would force parties to act. But, increasing the number of female MPs is only part of the battle, he warns.

“The issue is not only about the number of women in national assembly, but also why women end up as backbenchers and, when they reach higher office, they cannot go further than deputy members.”

However, one of the biggest obstacles to getting more women in government may be women themselves.

Frank – who directs Sister Namibia, a feminist organisation that has helped drive a campaign for equal representation of men and women on regional councils – says there is a general lack of interest in politics amongst Namibian women, and most importantly women in the ruling party.

The ‘five percent to 50 percent’ campaign aims at increasing the representation of women on regional councils from the present five percent to 50 percent, (currently there are only five women serving on regional councils in Namibia compared to 96 men, according to material compiled by the campaign).

But, as voters prepare to go to the polls to vote for regional councillors on Nov. 29 and 30, it doesn’t appear that many gains are likely to be made by the ‘five percent to 50 percent’ activists.

SWAPO has put forward 12 women candidates at regional level. Even if all these persons were to be elected, women’s representation on regional councils would only rise to 11 percent – as there are 107 constituencies in Namibia.