Naledi Maunganidze’s campaign poster

Moses
Ziyambi

While youth and women
voices are getting bolder and more vocal in civic spaces, it remains debatable
whether that has directly translated into greater participation of these two
marginalised groups in institutions of governance and decision-making.

There is a general
acknowledgement among many stakeholders that gender mainstreaming and youth
empowerment is a pre-requisite for sustainable socio-economic transformation.

There is realisation
that for women and youths to be able to have more seats in parliament as well
as in rural district and urban councils, political parties will have to revise
and reorient their approach to this issue.

Over and above all, women
and youths themselves need to be encouraged to cast off their apathy and become
bolder in their quest for equitable representation in a country with more women
than men and more youths than older people.

In the recent Chivi
South Zanu PF primary elections that were conducted in preparation for a by-election
to fill a parliamentary seat left vacant by the recall of former legislator
Killer Zivhu, a total of nine candidates contested.

Of these contestants,
two were youths – meaning those with 35 years of age or below – while one was a
woman. No other political party had contacted primary elections in the
constituency by the time of writing.

The winner of the
contest, successful businessperson Munyaradzi Zizhou, is only 32-years of age,
meaning he will be among the youngest Members of Parliament (MP) if he wins the
by-election as is most likely if voting patterns in the constituency since 1980
are anything to go by.

Naledi Maunganidze, a
30-year-old woman, was the only female contestant in the race, and she put up
an inspiring campaign in a contest that was dominated by men. She finished the
race at number four with 723 votes against the winner’s 1 857.

After the announcement
of the results, the party’s Masvingo provincial political commissar Jevas
Masosota said the party was pleased by the gender and youth mainstreaming
strides it made.

“In our organization of
party structures, we are cognisant of the need to balance all factors including
the involvement of young people and women. We acknowledge that women and youths
need to have a bigger representation in the party and in government. It all
begins at cell level, and I am pleased that the Chivi South primaries have been
won by a youth while a young woman finished in the top four,” said Masosota.

He said there were many
opportunities for greater inclusion of women and youths in the party’s
structures as contained in the party’s 2018 elections manifesto.

The Zanu PF 2018
election manifesto makes a commitment to equal representation of men and women
as well as the youth in all areas of leadership.

“Vigorous
implementation of the 50:50 representation in key decision-making positions in
both public and encouraging local authorities to set up quotas for woman in the
allocation of residential, industrial and commercial space,” the manifesto
asserts, and goes on to make further commitments to mainstream youth affairs in
governance issues

The MDC Alliance, the
political party which performed second-best in the previous harmonised
elections, also makes grand promises for youth and women empowerment.

In an interview with
TellZim News after winning the by-election, Zizhou said he was delighted by his
victory and will work to ensure greater inclusion of young people in the
party and the wider society.

“It is sweet victory
for me and I thank my party for giving me, a youth, an opportunity to contest
and win. I will work to ensure that more young men and women are given roles in
the party and are represented more in business. We are making progress but we
can all do better,” said Zizhou.

In responses to
questions sent to her, Maunganidze said there were many hurdles that women and
youths still faced in the political arena, adding that progress towards achieving fairer
representation targets remained painfully slow.

“There has to be an accelerated
gender and youth mainstreaming process at political party and government level.
We might be moving in the right direction but progress is painfully slow. This
country can achieve more if youths and women, who constitute the largest
demographic group within the population, are accorded greater roles in
governance as the constitution requires,” said Maunganidze.

Section 17 of the
country’s constitution obligates the State to ‘promote full participation of
women in all spheres of Zimbabwean society on the basis of equality with men’,
and to ensure that ‘both genders are equally represented in all institutions
and agencies of government at every level.’

When read with Section
56, this section lays the legal basis for a truly representative society which
gives equal opportunities to men and women.

Youth issues are dealt
with under Section 20 which requires ‘the State and all institutions and
agencies of government at every level’ to take ‘reasonable measures, including
affirmative action programmes, to ensure that youths…have opportunities to
associate and to be represented and participate in political social, economic
and other spheres of life’.

The Women Coalition of
Zimbabwe (WCoZ), a national women advocacy group, is convinced that for women
to enjoy an equal share in politics and governance, government should quickly
implement Section 56 of the constitution.

On 08 April 2017, the
organization launched the #Section56 Campaign to ensure that Section 56 of the
constitution, which speaks on equality of all persons, is implemented.

“We are encouraging
women to take up decision-making positions but it has to begin at lower levels;
in such smaller structures as School Development Committees (SDCs). We cannot
hope to have more female councillors and MPs if we ignore those lower level
structures that build women’s confidence,” said WCoZ Masvingo Chapter
chairperson Joyce Mhungu in a recent live-streamed Facebook discussion
organised by TellZim.

She said the
organization’s Women Empowered for Leadership programme aimed to encourage
women to work for higher positions be it at work places or in political
contestation.

“We urge women not to
leave anything to chance, and not to look down upon their capacity by leaving
all important positions to be taken by men. The transformation that we seek has
to be built from the grassroots all the way up,” said Mhungu.

With only modest, and
oftentimes marginal gains being made towards greater inclusion of women and
youths in decision-making processes, it remains a farfetched dream that equal
representation will be achieved by the end of the current electoral cycle in 2023.

Some encouraging opportunities, however, do exist for courageous women and youths to take so that the country will have a younger, more feminine parlimanent and local governance structure come 2023.