Zimbabwe: The role of women in the 2000 Zimbabwe Election (continued)
The rising election temperature, together with the violence that has characterized the run up to Zimbabwe elections, has overshadowed many issues, including the role of women in politics.
At a meeting held for aspiring women parliamentarians from different political parties in Harare on 16 May, women said hostile treatment from men during campaigning and voting was hindering full participation of women in politics. Men in their respective parties openly criticized their involvement in politics, alleging that they were generally not competent. "It is not easy for a woman candidate to get full support from her male counterparts, although she would have proved to be capable," said Ms Jane Madzongwe, a Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD) parliamentary candidate.
Participants also highlighted the lack of financial resources as another factor discouraging women from entering the political arena. The meeting organized by the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN), aims at creating a platform where women candidates from different political parties meet and share ideas. It also aims at assessing the needs of women and identifying organizations that may need training and skills development.
A look at the candidates for the ruling party and that of the main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), reveals a situation where the number of women is at 10 per cent or less in a country where women make up 52 percent of the population. The ruling ZANU PF party says in its manifesto women remain underrepresented in key positions in both the public and private sector. It says discriminatory practices persist in all spheres of life and that major disparities separate educational opportunities for girls and boys. These disparities favour boys.
Important concerns include access to land, meaningful representation in decision-making positions, business and educational opportunities, promotion of reproductive rights and sustained action against all forms of violence directed at women.
However, Zimbabwean women are not alone. Discrimination against women is the oldest form of oppression and continues to remain a problem in the present day world. Women around the world at every socio-political level find themselves under-represented in parliament and far removed from the decision-making process at all levels. Men dominate the political arena; men formulate the rules of the political game; and men define the standards for evaluation. Furthermore, political life is organized according to male norms and values.
Like the majority of SADC countries Zimbabwe uses the First-Past-The-Post electoral system which is based on the idea of winners and losers, competition and confrontation, rather on mutual respect, collaboration and consensus building. Zimbabwean women's groups say this environment is alien to women, both to their natures and to their experiences. They charge that it is the existence of this male-dominated model which results in small number of women participating in politics. Women's groups as well opposition parties made strong calls to change the electoral system from First-Past-The-Post to Proportional Representation (PR) during the drafting of the ill fated constitution earlier this year.
The PR translates the number of votes cast into seats in parliament and this gives the smaller parties as well as women and other minority groups a chance to be included in parliament. This is in direct contrast to the First-Past-The-Post system where the so call "big" parties tend to dominate giving rise to the 'democratically elected one-party-state'.