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Mrs Kazembe

Zvifadzo Lubombo Herald Reporter
Government should support women participation in politics as they can contribute immensely to the development of the country, a senior official with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has said.
ZEC deputy chairperson Mrs Joyce Kazembe said the participation of women in politics had remained low because of several bottlenecks, a development that is likely to hamper the country’s quest to have men and women share 50 percent representation in the political landscape by 2015 in line with the Sadc protocol on gender and development.

This comes in the wake of the low number of female legislators elected into Parliament in the recent harmonised elections.
Mrs Kazembe urged women to start strategising for the next elections to get more seats in future.

“We need to start strategising now for future elections because those elected are a mere fraction compared to their male counterparts,” she said.

“Everyone is disappointed with the low number of women who participated in the just ended elections. Very few women were elected in the elections hence there is a need for more women to take part in politics.”

Mrs Kazembe also said the Government should support attempts by the Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development Ministry of getting knowledgeable women who have intellectual capital from the civic society to be involved in mainstream politics.

Previously the ministry wanted to come up with a Women’s Council Bill, similar to the one in Uganda, where women would not have to be in party politics, but are elected from the community to represent women’s interests.

Women failed to get the 50-50 representation in the harmonised elections held last month. All parties fielded a combined 90 women compared to 663 males who participated in the elections.