ZIMBABWE: ZANU-PF out wooing women

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

HARARE, 16 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - A decision by Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party to field 30 female candidates in the March 2005 parliamentary elections has had mixed reactions.

ZANU-PF's female members have been asking for the quota since 1999, but complying with the request six weeks before the elections on 31 March would suggest that the party is using it to attract votes - now that the rhetoric on land reform has all but worn out.

Despite the participation of 16 MDC female candidates, the party is unlikely to match ZANU-PF's 30 percent of female representatives. Women will oppose each other in at least five constituencies, and both parties are fielding women in traditionally 'no-win areas': ZANU-PF in 10 urban constituencies, and the urban-based MDC in nine rural constituencies.

In the 2000 elections, 55 women stood - over 40 from the ZANU-PF and 12 from the MDC - but only a total of 16 made it into parliament, three of them nominated by President Robert Mugabe.

The largest number of women representatives has been 22 in the 1995-2000 parliament, but since women constitute 51 percent of the population, "it is good strategy to woo them with the quota," Professor Eliphus Mukonoweshuro, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, told IRIN.

The 30 percent quota promised to women has not been fully implemented - the ruling party would need to field 40 female candidates for the 120 contested seats.

Thirty-six seats were designated for women in the ZANU-PF primaries: some were elected unopposed, while others replaced male candidates sidelined for allegedly attempting to derail Joyce Mujuru's elevation to the vice-presidency; other seats, initially designated for women, were instead declared open, and many women lost to male candidates. Demonstrations against the alleged impositions followed, and thirty women's seats emerged from the exercise.

Deputy Speaker of parliament and ZANU-PF member Edna Madzongwe said the 30 seats would not be permanently reserved for women, but that each "primary election would have its own designated ones [seats] - what is permanent is the 30 percent requirement".

Dr Lovemore Madhuku, law lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe and chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, a coalition of civic organisations, claimed that ZANU-PF "had no gender policy", save the belief that women were "gullible and easily manipulated".

According to Mukonoweshuro, if ZANU-PF genuinely wanted more women in parliament it would ensure a bottom-up approach in implementing their gender policy. "If you start from the level of parliament and there are no organic roots extending downwards, it will collapse," he told IRIN.

Nomutandazo Jones, acting director of the Zimbabwean Women Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN), commented, "We need to start from the grassroots and include chiefs, who are the custodians at that level - we can't talk of parliament when the grassroots are afraid to stand up."

The ZANU-PF candidate for the Gutu North constituency in Masvingo province and an MP since 1985, Shuvai Mahofa, said she would lobby for "a law for 50 percent female representation, starting with urban and rural councils, and finally parliament", instead of each party doing as it felt. She also intended seeking a 30 percent chairmanship of portfolio committees, with similar reforms in government.

Neither party has made any significant attempts to increase the effectiveness of their female representation. Tsitsi Matekaire of the Women in Parliament Support Unit (WIPSU) said, "Last year we went through some Hansards [records of parliamentary proceedings], to find out what women were saying, how often they were speaking and when, so we could help where there was a need - we found some were not participating."

WIPSU is trying to capacitate women in terms of research material and confidence building to help them push the female agenda more effectively.

But the women's success also depends on their respective parties' agendas. "ZANU-PF women had been pushing for a quota system since 1999 - suddenly, they have it, but the Domestic Violence Bill is still pending four years later," Matekaire told IRIN.

ZWRCN holds regular economic literacy programmes with female MPs on the budget and its impact on women, but little of this effort has been reflected in parliamentary debates or in the portfolio committees, where the women oversee the functions and finances of ministries and help implement recommendations from civil society.

In four years of engagement with the women, Jones said, there had been only one real success: calling for an audit of the AIDS levy.

Mukonoweshuro said women pushed into parliament by party machinery were unlikely to perform in their individual capacities.

"If you can't read and understand a draft legislative bill, you don't belong in parliament. You should remain at the grassroots, and ensure that a suitable candidate can take up your struggle," he told IRIN. "To be able to call in the head of mines, in the context of a portfolio committee, you need to understand how the industry functions. If you are a maker of clay pots, how do you grasp the highly empirical knowledge required in parliament?"

He said political parties should seek professional women as candidates, and be willing not to view such women as a threat. Looking for suitable candidates should also be ongoing. "We need to build capacity from one election to another, so that there are always well-groomed women to take up the challenges."

ZANU-PF MP Mahofa, who is also deputy minister in the gender ministry, said since independence in 1980, women had helped to pass worthwhile laws, such as the Age of Majority Act and the legislation allowing customary law wives to inherit property.

The women's caucus, a product of the last parliament, consisting of ZANU-PF and MDC female parliamentarians, had lobbied for the Sexual Offences Act with its stiff penalties for rape. For the first time, in any parliament, a woman had headed a portfolio committee - the powerful public accounts group, which oversees matters of government finance and helps to identify problems in parastatals.

[ENDS]