South Africa, a leader in gender equality in politics

IEC’s state of democracy seminar in Sandton saw a panel featuring four distinguished guests speak on various issues in Sandton on September 21.

They included professor of political science at UJ, Mcebisi Ndletyana, gender and governance associate at Gender Links Susan Tolmay, director of programmes at AUWAL Socio-Economic Research Institute ASRI Ebrahim Fakir, and professor of political science at Stellenbosch University Dr Collete Schulz-Herzenberg.

Tolmay said there continues to be problems with women’s participation in politics. Despite advances made in recent decades, there may be a rollback on those advances.

South Africa’s parliament is comprised of 46% women, as many as any other African country. Only Seychelles has as many women in parliament.

ALSO READ: Faith in IEC and political system is down – research shows

Our local government has 37% women. This is more than most African countries, but Namibia (45%) and Lesotho (40%) have more.

The percentage of women local government councillors decreased from 40% in 2009 to 37% in 2016.

Women make up 50% of cabinet and 46% of members of parliament, deputy ministers and members of provincial legislature. These are all up drastically from recent years.

However, Tolmay said it is not enough to say that because there are many women in politics, that they share the same influence as men. An enabling environment must be created for the women in these positions to exercise influence.

Ndletyana spoke on issues of councillors vying for places and power, using the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality as an example. Fakir spoke on politics, elections, process and procedure while Schulz-Herzenberg spoke on building participatory democratic culture in South Africa and the rise of the volatile voter or disaffected citizen.

In their presentations and the question-and-answer session that followed, all four panellists agreed South African voters are disinterested in politics because they feel voting makes no difference.

Rising unemployment and living costs have resulted in lower voter turnout. Rather than vote for opposition parties, which people do not trust, many prefer to stay home and not vote.

There is also evidence that young people do not even bother to register, not just because they have never been educated about the importance of democracy, but they hear what their elders are saying about the perceived ineffectiveness of the democratic system.

All this means despite the ANC losing electoral support over the years (63% vote proportion in 1994 compared to 58% in 2019, and 54% voting age population 1994 compared to 28% in 2019) the party still maintains power.

ALSO READ: Statistics about democracy in South Africa

In regards to coalitions, the experts and researchers said the general public does not mind coalitions, but dislikes the chaos and ambiguities caused by them. One possible solution discussed was that it might be better for parties to discuss and publicly reveal their intended coalition partners before elections.

The presentation can be found on the IEC website.

Related Articles:

https://midrandreporter.co.za/311057/panel-discusses-gender-in-democracy-and-political-disillusionment/

https://midrandreporter.co.za/311067/what-is-the-state-of-democracy/