ZAMBIA: Outlook Dim for Women Candidates

•  lusaka
• Wednesday, August 17, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Zambia is a signatory of the Southern Africa Development Community Protocol on Gender and Development, which commits member countries to have 50/50 representation of women in all decision- making positions, including the political arena, by 2015. But the Zambia's political parties have not reflected this in their adoption of female candidates.

Only the Forum for Democratic Development (FDD) nominated a woman, Edith Nawakwi, to contest the presidential race. She is the only woman out of the 15 presidential candidates. Initially there were 17 candidates, however, two have since dropped out.

In the last parliament, there were 22 women out of 158 members in the National Assembly, accounting for a 14 percent female representation.

The ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was the first to publish its list of parliamentary candidates on Jul. 20, and it only had 19 women out of 150 candidates.

The main opposition parties, the Patriotic Front and the United Party for National Development, are yet to publish their lists, but women's rights activists feel there will not be much of a difference.

Emily Sikazwe, the executive director of Women for Change, a non-governmental organisation that advocates for the economic and political empowerment of women, told IPS that this year the prospects for women being elected look bleak.

'Already, all the political parties have adopted few women,' Sikazwe said.

In September, Zambia will hold tripartite elections to choose a president, 150 members of parliament and councillors.

When the registration for presidential election candidates opened on Aug. 7, scores of women turned up at the Supreme Court, the venue for the nominations. These women were from different walks of life, but they had one common purpose: to cheer on FDD's party president, Nawakwi - who is the only female presidential candidate.

Among those who came to offer solidarity to Nawakwi was women's rights activist Beatrice Grillo, the chairperson of the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Council (NGOCC), an umbrella body for women's organisations.

'We have been looking forward to this occasion. We will support her not because she belongs to any party, but because she is a woman. We want to see an end to the poverty that is in this country. We want the women of Zambia to stop struggling. Those are the issues we are looking for and that is what she has promised,' Grillo told IPS.

Grillo was adamantly confident that Nawakwi and other women contesting various positions in the elections would perform well. She said the NGOCC has even come up with an election fund to support women who will be running. The fund will support female candidates in acquiring campaign material. The candidates will, however, not be given cash.

'We have campaign teams that will be going out to campaign for all women from all political parties,' said Grillo.

But not all women share Grillo's excitement about Nawakwi's presidential candidacy. Some feel the struggle for women's representation has been lost before it has even started.

Although the exact figures have not yet been compiled following delays by some of the parties to announce their final lists of candidates, a number of sitting female MPs were dropped and replaced with either male or female candidates.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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