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The South African local elections on 18 May – the last before the regional deadline for gender parity in politics by 2015 – are likely to witness a decline in women’s representation.
This underscores the importance of quotas for women in politics being legislated as opposed to being left to the whims of political parties.
ANC only party CLOSE to honouring gender parity. (47%)
Gender Links predicts that women’s representation will decrease from the current level of 40% to 38% in the forthcoming elections.
This is largely because although the dominant African National Congress (ANC) has come close to honouring its commitment to gender parity (47% women candidates) in the 2011 polls, other parties have not done so. In addition, the ANC’s majority of 66% in the last elections is expected to drop this election by as much as 10% to 14% in the wake of service delivery discontent.
DA only fielding 33% female candidates.
Despite having two women leaders, the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) – recently merged with the Independent Democrats (ID) – is opposed to quotas and only fielded 33% women in the elections.
The failure by parties to field equal numbers of women is especially worrying as these are the last local government elections before the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development’s target of 50/50 representation by 2015.
Despite South Africa’s signature on this important regional development protocol, it will surely now not meet its commitment.
This year’s elections have seen a large increase in the number of political parties contesting: 121 parties have been registered. Yet out of these parties the representation of women as candidates has increased by a very slight percentage. Some political parties do not even have any women as registered candidates.
According to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), of the more than 53 000 candidates, 19 731 women will stand compared to 15 718 registered women candidates in the 2006 local government elections. This is only a two percentage point increase and poses a lot of questions around why the proportion of female candidates increased by such a small amount in the past five years.
These low numbers are likely due to a number of factors:
• The political arena continues to be male-dominated, making it hard for women to access the political domain without fear or prejudice.
• Women are also not recognised as leaders – even by other women within their political parties.
What is possibly even more disappointing is the manner in which women’s issues were (or were not) addressed in election manifestos. Political parties release manifestos in order to drum up support, making promises and pledges for a better life for South Africa’s communities. Only the ANC made specific reference to women’s issues and set targets as to how it plans to improve the lives of women. None of the other political parties stated how they would work with women.
The DA – which has a woman leader, a young woman spokesperson and a woman mayoral candidate (all prominent in election advertising) – did not even mention the word “women” anywhere in its manifesto.
What is also unacceptable is that even during campaign rallies and election debates none of the political parties have put forward a clear agenda around tackling the issue of getting women into local government. Instead, infrastructural and development issues such as housing, sanitation and healthcare have taken key priority. It is not that these are not important aspects within local government – they certainly are. However, political parties have failed to indicate how these will benefit women, who are the main beneficiaries of these utilities.
A report by Gender Links ahead of the elections concludes that: “While women constitute the majority of voters and the ANC has come close to achieving gender parity in its lists and candidates, other parties have failed to do so. Their manifestos are silent on the gender disparities in South African society that constitute one of the biggest injustices in our young democracy.”
What do you think? Is legislating gender quotas the only way to get political parties to recognise the need for more women in government?
This underscores the importance of quotas for women in politics being legislated as opposed to being left to the whims of political parties.
ANC only party CLOSE to honouring gender parity. (47%)
Gender Links predicts that women’s representation will decrease from the current level of 40% to 38% in the forthcoming elections.
This is largely because although the dominant African National Congress (ANC) has come close to honouring its commitment to gender parity (47% women candidates) in the 2011 polls, other parties have not done so. In addition, the ANC’s majority of 66% in the last elections is expected to drop this election by as much as 10% to 14% in the wake of service delivery discontent.
DA only fielding 33% female candidates.
Despite having two women leaders, the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) – recently merged with the Independent Democrats (ID) – is opposed to quotas and only fielded 33% women in the elections.
The failure by parties to field equal numbers of women is especially worrying as these are the last local government elections before the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development’s target of 50/50 representation by 2015.
Despite South Africa’s signature on this important regional development protocol, it will surely now not meet its commitment.
This year’s elections have seen a large increase in the number of political parties contesting: 121 parties have been registered. Yet out of these parties the representation of women as candidates has increased by a very slight percentage. Some political parties do not even have any women as registered candidates.
According to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), of the more than 53 000 candidates, 19 731 women will stand compared to 15 718 registered women candidates in the 2006 local government elections. This is only a two percentage point increase and poses a lot of questions around why the proportion of female candidates increased by such a small amount in the past five years.
These low numbers are likely due to a number of factors:
• The political arena continues to be male-dominated, making it hard for women to access the political domain without fear or prejudice.
• Women are also not recognised as leaders – even by other women within their political parties.
What is possibly even more disappointing is the manner in which women’s issues were (or were not) addressed in election manifestos. Political parties release manifestos in order to drum up support, making promises and pledges for a better life for South Africa’s communities. Only the ANC made specific reference to women’s issues and set targets as to how it plans to improve the lives of women. None of the other political parties stated how they would work with women.
The DA – which has a woman leader, a young woman spokesperson and a woman mayoral candidate (all prominent in election advertising) – did not even mention the word “women” anywhere in its manifesto.
What is also unacceptable is that even during campaign rallies and election debates none of the political parties have put forward a clear agenda around tackling the issue of getting women into local government. Instead, infrastructural and development issues such as housing, sanitation and healthcare have taken key priority. It is not that these are not important aspects within local government – they certainly are. However, political parties have failed to indicate how these will benefit women, who are the main beneficiaries of these utilities.
A report by Gender Links ahead of the elections concludes that: “While women constitute the majority of voters and the ANC has come close to achieving gender parity in its lists and candidates, other parties have failed to do so. Their manifestos are silent on the gender disparities in South African society that constitute one of the biggest injustices in our young democracy.”
What do you think? Is legislating gender quotas the only way to get political parties to recognise the need for more women in government?
