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/ 13 April 2007

Arguing for a gender quota

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‘I often joke to the men that they have a genetic defect — they don’t see capable women,” quipped Frene Ginwala this week.

Ginwala, the former speaker of Parliament , is a member of the constitutional affairs sub-committee of the ANC’s NEC. This body has the ultimate responsibility for implementing the new quota system by adjusting the ANC constitution.

Ginawala believes a gender quota system should be implemented. Currently there are 20 women in the NEC — 34% of total. This is in line with an ANC decision that one-third of the NEC should be female.

Now the party is likely to increase this to 50%, to align with the 50/50 gender balance introduced by President Thabo Mbeki in the Cabinet and standard in provincial legislatures.

Past ANC conferences have rejected the 50/50 representation concept, arguing that the party was not ready.

‘As a member of the NEC, I will be pushing for these guidelines,” said Ginwala. ‘But I’m also enough of a politician to know the process won’t happen overnight.”

Ginwala is also adamant that, if the 50/50 quota is implemented, the election of women to the NEC should be based on ability. ‘Women can’t be there for the sake of it,” she said. ‘We’ve got to be careful not to set women up for failure. By the same token we need to stretch the guidelines as far as we can reach.”

She said the female representation in the NEC should come directly from the ground, ‘not the [ANC] Women’s League”, just as increased working-class representation ‘does not mean Cosatu”.

On the issue of worker representation, former union leader and NEC member Enoch Godongwana said the issue was ‘not whether one is still a worker in a factory, but to what extent there is a dominance of what we characterise as progressive leadership. We’ve got to make sure we don’t become dislocated from our base.”

Godongwana said the fundamental question facing the ANC in shaping its future leadership was: ‘How do we sustain a vibrant democracy in a developing economy where people believe access to power, resources and prestige is via the state?”

The NEC had to be chosen by interrogating the ANC’s relationship with the government, legislatures and business, he said.