Quotas

A CROSS section of female politicians in Namibia have voiced their concern over the slow progress of political parties in implementing 50/50 (zebra style) representation in party structures and parliament.

While some believe the country is on the right path to achieving the set Southern African Development Community (SADC) target of 30% representation of women in positions of power, primarily in politics, others believe not enough is not being done, and called for a paradigm shift.

The court has turned down a constitutional case filed by independent candidate Arnold Cassola against government over the gender corrective mechanism approved by parliament last April.

Cassola had argued constitutional amendments approved in parliament are discriminatory in favour of “PNPL women” and against all other women who are not affiliated to one of the two big parties. “Worse than that, it is an insult jointly concocted by the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party,” Cassola had said.

Over 30 years since declaring independence from Somalia in 1991, the Republic of Somaliland has established itself as a paragon of stability in a tough neighbourhood. Although it remains internationally unrecognised, it is inevitably compared favourably to Somalia, not least in its efforts to establish a homegrown democratic tradition. Though not always smoothly, Somaliland has held eight functional elections and one constitutional referendum since 2001.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is one of only five countries in the world that have no female members of Parliament (alongside Yemen, Qatar, Micronesia, Vanuatu) and is below the global average of 23% female representation in Parliament.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, PNG, for the first time in 25 years (since the 1992 election), no females will make up the 111 - member Parliament - despite more female candidates being nominated for elections in 2017 than ever before; 167 of 3,332 were female candidates.

Zimbabwe is scheduled to hold elections in 18 months’ time, but women are reluctant to have their faces appear on ballot papers.

Women here know only too well that in politics, sticks and stones literally break bones, and name-calling is part of the gladiatorial politics in a country where each election cycle is greeted with violence. From party primaries to national elections, the violent nature of the contests is the history of Zimbabwe, with little being done to provide safe spaces for women candidates.

A game of political one-upmanship is being witnessed among the major political parties ever since Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra promised 40% party tickets to women candidates and made some populist announcements for them ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, has signed into law a bill that makes it mandatory to have at least 35  per cent women appointees in the State Executive Council and other classes of political appointments. The law is cited as Kwara State Political Offices (Gender Composition) Bill 2021.

Justifying the law, the state governor on Tuesday said it was only fair that women be given a fair space in the decision-making process. He spoke in Ilorin, the state capital, during a conference tagged ‘Cracking the glass ceiling: The story of Kwara women.’

Somalia's federal electoral agency is urging all regional polls supervisors to ensure that at least 30 percent of seats in the Lower House go to women.

In a letter to state electoral teams, the federal agency also published a table showing the number of legislators each state will vote for, out of the total 275 MPs and the respective 30 percent women legislators to come out.