No female candidates as UDF congress nears

THE UDF does not have female candidates who will contest for the top posts, a week before the party holds its congress, the party’s secretary of the women’s league, Dorcas Shikongo, said on Tuesday.

Shikongo, however, said she was happy with the party’s performance, which currently has eight female councillors and one of them, Tryphosa Moloto, is the current mayor of Khorixas.

Her party, Shikongo said, is busy with capacity building for female members and will campaign for more women to stand as local authority candidates next year to break the ‘barrier’.

She further said that if UDF wins at least 10 parliamentary seats, then more women from her party would have a bigger representation.

Shikongo blamed women for being reluctant to contest for positions although UDF has a 50/50 representation policy. “Women have not changed their mentality to stand up against men. We are reluctant.”

According to Shikongo, UDF had 10 females in the top 20 positions on the parliamentary lists for the 2009 elections while she is the only female in a 10-member central committee.

Dudu Murorua, UDF secretary general, said constitutional amendments will be made at the congress so that a female is elected for the deputy secretary general post and that delegates at next week’s congress will be sensitised to elect women into various top positions.

The position for vice president to which Murorua was nominated, will not be contested at the congress as Lina //Hoeses, who had expressed interest to oppose him, did not meet the requirements, one of which was that the candidate must be a member of central committee, a councillor or be in the branch management.

Positions such as that of national treasurer, secretary for information, national organiser, which are all held by men will not be contested at the congress for lack of nominees while the positions of president and those of various secretary positions will be up for grabs at the congress.

In 2004, UDF president Justus //Garoeb remarked that “women have boarded the train and UDF is no longer a man’s game but a family game,” but it seems female representation in UDF will be less if more are not elected from the floor next week making his party a male domain again.

In June this year Swapo was slammed by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) for failing to meet its targets to have half of all leadership positions filled by women.

Nangula Shejavali, IPPR research associate singled out CoD as the most progressive party in terms of gender representation with other parties like the National Democratic Party of Namibia (NDP) and the Communist Party also getting praises for progressiveness.

clemans@namibian.com.na

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.