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Women's Watch Bulletin 7/2008
Veritas
March 28, 2008

Congratulations
Congratulations to all the women participating in the 2008 elections. We salute their fortitude in overcoming numerous obstacles to participate. Congratulations to women leaders in political parties who over the last five years have been working so hard to achieve this. Congratulations to all the women's organisations who have been working to empower women for decades and to The Women's Trust for their recent Women Can Do It campaign which has boosted the confidence of women aspiring for political office.

Women candidates for March 29 elections

Total Number of Women up for Election:

Countrywide 896 women are standing for office at different levels out of a total of 4391 nominated candidates.

Total percentage of women standing - 20.4%.

Breakdown according to office:
President - 0 out of 4 candidates [Note: in the previous presidential elections a woman stood for President]

Senate - [60 elected seats] - 57 women out of 196 candidates - 29.1 % [down from previous election]

Note: there are also eighteen seats for chiefs in the Senate - most of whom will be men. And five seats directly appointed by President. Women should lobby that the majority of these seats go to women and representatives of vulnerable sectors - the disabled, etc. Also ten seats for Provincial Governors - again, women should lobby that at least half should be women.

House of Assembly [210 elected seats] - 99 women out of 774 candidates - 12.8% [down from previous election]

Council - 740 women out of 3431 candidates - 21.6% [no figures for comparison from previous elections]

Breakdown by political parties:
Zanu PF
44 out of 214 House of Assembly candidates - 20.6%
27 out of 59 Senate candidates - 45.8 %

MDC faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai
25 out of 209 House of Assembly candidates -12%
18 out of 60 Senate candidates - 30%

MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara
19 out of 144 House of Assembly candidates - 13.2%
6 out of 34 Senate candidates - 17.6%

Independents attached to Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn - Simba Makoni
8 out of 51 House of Assembly candidates - 15.7%
3 out of 9 Senate candidates - 33%

UPP - 4 for Senate [36.4% of their candidates] and 2 for House of Assembly [4.1% of their candidates]

ZPPDP - 1 for Senate [50% of their candidates]

Other parties - [no reliable figures of women candidates but believed to be very few]

Other Independents - no women for Senate but a few in the House of Assembly [most women candidates came through party structures]

Note: We have taken figures of total numbers of candidates accepted by nomination courts from the gazetted General Notices 31 [President] and 32 [House of Assembly and Senate] of 2008. Candidates who withdrew, and those from elections stopped because of deaths, have not been subtracted - they included men and women]. Council candidates were not gazetted but were published by ZEC in the Herald and also confirmed in person by a legal officer at ZEC. The figures for women candidates we have from various sources including political parties, women's organisations and AFP. The sources all vary slightly so we have taken a best estimate.

Comment
Percentages are slightly down for women standing for Presidential, Senate and House of Assembly compared to immediately previous elections. Although we don't have the figures for the previous Council Elections the impressions we have received from our enquiries is that there may be more women than in previous elections standing at that level. The economic environment of the last few years has probably hit women hardest and this would affect women standing for political offices which would take them further from home and above all needed more resources for campaigning. So they have done very well in the circumstances.

Challenges that women have faced in these elections:

Finance
Lack of financial resources seems to be at the top of the list. In the majority of cases women candidates are expected to use their personal reserves to run their campaigns. Men are more often sufficiently resourced personally and are better supported by their parties. Parties on the whole give more resources to those who are higher up in the hierarchy and women are less well represented in the top structures. In addition to focusing on campaigning, women have to find money for food, accommodation and transport for campaign team members, who usually assist on a voluntary basis, and also for the election agents that candidates need in each polling station and then at collating points. In an IPS report, a member of Zanu PF Women's' League summed up the situation when she said: "In instances that we have women volunteering to take up political posts they are faced with ... having to choose whether to commit family resources to the political cause or feeding the family. . . . .Political parties do very little to support women candidates and there lies the problem."

Intimidation
Women complained of intimidation from members of their own party when they attempt to take up positions before, during and after the primaries. Women seemed to be more disconcerted by attacks from within their parties. They are often very courageous when confronting state violence or violence from other parties.

Transport
Moving around their constituencies is difficult for women. Often they do not have cars and so they are expected to walk on their door to door campaigns. This is especially a barrier in large and rural constituencies. If a woman candidate owns a car she is still expected to provide money for fuel.

Security
It is not safe for women candidates to drive around on their own but as one candidate pointed out it is not always comfortable or safe to have a male driver or other male party members especially when travelling around at night.

Backing from family
Women have reported that going into politics caused trouble in their families.

General
The economic situation has probably hit women hardest - they are hampered by basic survival efforts, looking after the family, being the caregivers for the many sick and the fact they tend to earn less then men when they have formal employment. Generally fewer women are in a position to be able to commit the necessary time and resources. There is much work needed to improve the status of women in every sphere but especially economically, before the 50-50 target is achieved. Until women have economic sufficiency and more women have means of their own we will not get women who can compete on an equal footing with men for political office.

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