Female representation could decline according to forecast

DESPITE the flurry of media coverage on women in politics and women’s activism during the 2009 elections, Namibia could follow in the footsteps of Botswana and witness a decline in women’s representation in parliament from 30.8% to 25%, according to an election forecast by the Gender and Media Southern African Network (GEMSA)-Namibia.

This decrease would put a damper on Namibia’s chances of meeting the Southern African Development Community (SADC) target of 50% women in political decision-making by 2015, even though Namibia is one of the three countries that has ratified the 2008 SADC Protocol on Gender and Development.

The proportion of women in parliament dropped drastically from 11.1% to 6.5% in the recently ended elections in Botswana, a country which has not signed the SADC Protocol. Namibians will cast their ballots in Presidential and Parliamentary elections on 27 and 28 November.

Gender in the 2009 elections has been a newsworthy topic with Namibia’s mainstream media publishing stories on women’s participation in politics, their placement on parties’ lists and gender analyses of the political parties’ manifestos. And, more than 30 civil society organisations have joined hands with the Women’s Leadership Centre to mount the ‘Women Claiming Citizens Campaign’ launched in October.

“Twenty years after independence women are still seen as second class citizens, with less access to resources, income, land, decision making power and personal freedoms than men,” the campaign says in its widely circulated flyer.

“Enough is enough! Political parties take note of our demands. We are holding government accountable for adhering to all of the national and international gender laws and policies it has signed over the past 20 years.”

But even though women activists remind political parties that women represent 52% of the vote, the fact that Namibia still has no legislative quota for women at the national level, and the poor showing of women on some of the major political parties’ lists could swing the elections in an unfavourable direction for women, according to an analysis by NGO’s participating in a one-day workshop on gender, media and elections organised by GEMSANamibia and Gender Links, a South African-based NGO working in the area of gender and governance across the SADC region.

For example, Swapo which accounts for the majority of the current 30.8% of women has only two women in the top 10 of its 72 member list. Overall, women make up 32% of those on the party list (23 out of 72). GEMSA-Namibia’s members based their election forecast on an analysis of the lists of 13 of the 14 political parties; only the Communist party’s list was not available.

The NGO’s looked at the total number of women on the party list, the percentage of women overall, the projected number of seats a party would likely get in the upcoming elections and the percentage of women on the party lists likely to go through. Following the 2009 election, there is only one more election (in 2014) before the 2015 deadline.

GEMSANamibia has urged political parties to already look beyond 2009 and adopt voluntary party quotas for women of 50% and for activists and the public to increase pressure on the government to institute a legislated quota for women.

“If the pressure does not continue even after these elections, we will never change the representation of women in government,” said Marianne Eratus, a GEMSA-Namibia member. (ENDS) For more information contact Ms Sarry Xoagus-Eises, GEMSA country representative, cellphone 081 220 9216.