The top structure of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has backed gender parity — half women, half men — for its candidates for the upcoming local government election.
The election is scheduled to take place between December 6 2005 and March 5 2006.
In a statement on Monday, after its weekend meeting, the national executive committee (NEC) reiterated a similar statement made by President Thabo Mbeki in his internet letter on Friday.
Spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said: “The NEC adopted the guidelines by which the ANC will select its candidates for the forthcoming local government elections.
“As in previous elections, the guidelines will ensure a combination of broad-based democratic participation by ANC branch members, and measures to ensure the quality, integrity and representivity of the ANC’s local government candidates.”
In what he described as “an historic step”, in line with the ANC’s commitment to gender equity and the emancipation of women, “the NEC resolved to ensure an equal representation of men and women in all its local government candidate lists”.
“It is anticipated that this provision, like previous ANC initiatives to increase the representation of women, will have a far-reaching effect on efforts to address the under-representation of women in decision-making structures in sectors of society.”
In the last municipal election, in 2000, the ANC took control of all metropolitan areas — and the vast majority of smaller councils — except Cape Town, but this fell into its hands when the New National Party threw most of its councillors behind the ANC in 2002. — I-Net Bridge