The phrase ”too little, too late” is taking on new meaning in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region as countries race to meet the SADC-set 2005 target of 30% women’s representation in decision-making structures.
The first democratic local government elections in Lesotho, due to take place on April 30, are revealing in this respect. The Minister of Local Government, Matumelo Sekatle, has staked her legacy on legislating a gender quota in the mountain kingdom.
But opposition parties are challenging the constitutionality of reserving seats for women in the country’s 1 290 electoral divisions.
By Wednesday afternoon, 10 of the 17 registered parties were still threatening to boycott the poll. They include the main opposition Basotho National Party, the Kopa-nang Basotho Party, the Lesotho People’s Congress and a faction of the Basotho Land Congress Party.
The backlash has impacted negatively on the government’s efforts to promote gender equality in a country steeped in tradition. Radio talk shows have been inundated with angry callers arguing that it violates their right to free choice. Even the local NGO movement has resisted the move.
An aspirant councillor in the Litjotjela constituency — reserved for women — has lodged a complaint with the Independent Electoral Commission, arguing that this district represents his greatest chance of winning a local authority seat.
Could things have been done differently? One could oblige parties to field a quota of women candidates. But unless they win the constituencies, you will not get the desired outcome. The only sure way, as has happened in Lesotho, is to decree that only women can contest selected seats. A system of rotating the ”gender wards” at subsequent elections, will deal with concerns about how they were selected in the first place.
Another option, successfully implemented in Tanzania, is to allocate an additional quota of seats to women, over and above the directly elected representatives. Each party gets extra seats, albeit for women only, based on their electoral strength.
The downside of this approach is that you create two types of women public representatives and run the risk that the quota appointments will be regarded as ”second class” or token.
There are no simple answers to this conundrum. What has been lacking is public education on women’s under-representation in decision-making bodies and the need for special measures to correct the imbalance.
The eleventh-hour effort to meet the target, without sufficient thought or groundwork, may well render Lesotho another of the countries in the region that has done too little, too late.
Tom Mapesela is the secretary of the Gender and Media Southern Africa Network. This article is part of the Gender Links Gender and Media Opinion and Commentary Service