SANF 05 no 06
Mozambique’s democracy has once again stood up as a shining beacon in southern Africa – the 1-2 December 2004 general elections have returned more women to parliament than the previous one in 1999.
The ruling Frelimo party and its presidential candidate, Armando Guebuza, won the poll.
The opposition Renamo challenged the election results, but its attempts to have them annulled and fresh ones held has failed.
The Constitutional Council, the body that validates election results, has upheld the results provided by the National Elections Commission (CNE), which means that the way has been cleared for Guebuza and the incoming parliament to be sworn in.
After the validation of the results, which has still to take place, the Constitutional Council has, by law, to order publication of the results in the Boletim da República, the official gazette within two days.
Parliament then holds its first session 15 days after, at a date set by the CNE. And the president is inaugurated within eight days, on a day set by the Constitutional Council.
It is still not clear whether Renamo will take its 90 seats in the 250-seat chamber, but such threats were just that.
Nevertheless, when the new parliament sits for the first time sometime in early February there will be 33 percent woman representation, up from 31 percent.
And this is in line with Southern African Development Community (SADC) governments’ commitment to have women occupy at least 30 percent of parliamentary seats by 2005. The target is spelled out in the 1997 SADC Declaration on Gender and Development, recommending regional countries to have a minimum 30 percent women in decision-making structures by 2005.
The figure could have been higher had Renamo fielded enough women in the places it won a majority of votes. Consequently, out of 90 parliamentary deputies representing Renamo only 16 are women, just 17.7 percent.
Gender representation in Renamo folds dropped both in nominal and percentage terms compared to 1999 when there were 23 women or 19.6 percent.
However, Gánia Mussagy of Renamo’s Women League said that the drop reflected only the overall drop in Renamo numbers in parliament.
“It doesn’t mean that women were overlooked. Women were there in the lists arising from internal elections,” but owing to party poor showing in the elections, their numbers fell.
Gender activist Conceição Osório of Fórum Mulher told SANF that Renamo could be performing poorly in attracting women to party folds because of its past.
The “opposition is stigmatised because of its past, and it is worse for opposition women deputies,” said Osório.
Contrary, Frelimo’s share of women is 66 out of the party’s 160 deputies (41.2 percent). In 1999 there were 55 women deputies among the Frelimo ranks.
This was possible because during its internal election process for party representatives Frelimo adopted, wherever possible, a “zebra system” which entailed the alternation of men and women on the party candidate lists.
This allowed for a gender-balance of sorts. Women headed Frelimo lists in six constituencies out of a total of 13. In Maputo province only one man appeared in the top five, in second place.
Osório said that this is to be lauded but numbers do not necessarily translate into meaningful expression of a pro-gender agenda. “There hardly has been law initiatives undertaken by women parliamentarians, and we don’t see them making alliances with women in civil society in order to protect themselves against their own parties.”
In instances when women deputies should have been more vocal they had been happy to pass the initiative to men. In the five years that the new Family Law was discussed in parliament it was men who championed the cause, said Osório.
“Furthermore, we’ve tried many times to support women’s parliamentarians, but the sum is zero,” she said.
So what really is needed is a better awareness of gender issues both at inter- and cross-party levels, she said. The major concern is that once a woman joins a political party she is bound by party discipline (men also are forced to toe the party line) and ideology which “provides little opportunity for classifying women’s concerns as decisive for policies.”
This is compounded by the fact that large sectors of society still shun women participating in politics, starting from husbands who resent the wives being in the spotlight.
Mussagy concurred: “It’s difficult to invite a woman to a party before you invite the husband. I know of cases of women deputies who divorced because husbands could not allow it.”
This suggests that not even the status of deputy makes a woman immune to discrimination. For Mussagy it is therefore a victory that there are at least women in parliament and in leadership posts such as Prime Minister Luísa Diogo.
“I could say it’s a victory that we have the numbers we do,” she said. (SARDC)
