We need to promote grassroots female participation in politics

WOMEN seem to have been the biggest casualty at the Electoral College of the ruling party, Swapo. Admittedly, the poor showing among women has been placed in some quarters on the shoulders of the Swapo Party Women’s League Secretary, Petrina Haingura.

As custodian of the interests of women in Swapo it is expected that she accounts for such a poor showing. In some countries, pressure would be mounting that she resign. I believe that she must head for a graceful exit.After all, it is her responsibility to ensure that strategies are in place to ensure that Swapo adheres to existing SADC protocols on gender and development, in particular the Article 12 dealing with equal representation of women in positions of leadership by the year 2015.If women continue to lose ground in the most important political formation, such targets will not be attainable. As such, the Electoral College was a severe blow in the attainment of this objective. However, an important caveat ought to be made in this regard. Certainly, it is important that we commit ourselves to such lofty objectives in light of the history of marginalisation of our women. Instead of looking at the final count or after having done so, a more sound analysis should take place as to why women did badly or continue to be under-represented in politics.The results of the Swapo electoral college do suggest that women, and of course men, must go back to the drawing board if we are to attain the goal of equal representation of women in leadership by 2015. The point I seek to underscore here is that I am not too sure if the approach that we pursue has been helpful up to the present, particularly with regard to women in leadership positions in politics. It is simply not enough to insist that the ruling party’s National Assembly list must consist of 30 per cent women in the absence of any mass mobilisation strategy.Such a strategy would adopt a grassroots approach instead of the current loudspeaker strategy insisting that women must be seen in top positions of leadership when we reach electoral platforms.We need to start at the base. What does it mean?As a society we ought to understand the basic rule that women will continue to be underrepresented in politics for as long as they don’t participate in politics – for as long as they don’t take part in the cut-throat politics of branches, districts and regions.Structurally, it is an argument that would not hold water and that explains in part the failure of women in gaining traction in politics. Therefore, we should perhaps go back to the basics. Our communities, including our social institutions, in particular schools and universities, must be avenues through which we encourage female participation in politics.If one adopts a sociological perspective of this problem, one would note that it is not only cultural attitudes that are an obstacle to female participation in politics, but our education and social value system does not serve as an effective feeder for more women in political leadership.It is pretty common in this country to hear educated women saying that they are not interested in politics. A more detailed study about participation of women in politics ought to be made in order to enable a much more sustainable strategy.As it is, my gut feeling is that the majority of our educated women hardly show any consistent interest in political developments in the country.Yet, they ought to serve as the transmission belt cultivating interest in politics among women. Before we insist on more women in the National Assembly or any leadership position in politics, we need to get our women to participate more in politics.* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Panthéon Sorbonne, France.