Gender parity eludes Botswana
... despite democracy accolades
Botswana is known worldwide as one of Africa’s most stable democracies, and while the country has always been commended for its peaceful elections, political activists and analysts have decried the apparent struggle in ensuring gender parity towards more female representation in political office.
To this end, Non- Governmental Organisations such as the Democracy Works Foundation have been making commendable efforts to improve the participation of women in politics in Botswana.
As it aims to enhance the political participation of women in Botswana, which they say requires a change of mindset across all stakeholders and implementation of robust interventions that position women’s political participation as a broader societal interest, the foundation has been training and capacitating women in politics as well as their stakeholders to change the status quo and advance women political participation. However, more concerted efforts are still needed to bridge the gender gap in politics.
After the 2014 general election, Botswana only had four elected female Members of Parliament in the National Assembly.
The number fell down to only three after the 2019 general election. A far cry from the 30 percent goal set by the Southern African Development Community ( SADC) gender protocol. This is despite the fact that women represented 55 percent of registered voters nationwide.
Gender Activist and Former Gender Links Country Manager, Onneetse Makhumalo says this is because of Botswana’s patriarchal society. “Our biggest challenge is the way our society is, we are a very patriarchal society, and our patriarchy is so embedded in us so much that we believe men do better in leadership positions than women.”
She said another struggle with putting women in political positions is that it is not something that you can do on your own like getting any other job as first you would need voters to understand that women can also excel in political leadership positions contrary to their patriarchal beliefs.
“We need a multipronged intervention. First, we need to train the candidates themselves to believe in themselves. We also need capable women who are leaders especially those in the private sector, but our challenge is that in most cases, those that are already in leadership positions elsewhere are not interested in political office,” she said.
A c c o r d i n g t o Makhumalo, political parties should also have their own quotas for women’s representation if they are to stand any chance in getting rid of gender disparity in politics because women’s representation matters especially in leadership.
She said that parties should also look into political party funding because funding or lack thereof is one of the biggest factors that hinder women from going into politics.
The 2007 African Charter on Democracy,
Elections and Governance ( ACDEG), the continental legal framework on the promotion of democracy, free and fair elections, and good governance, requires member states to encourage full and active participation of women in the electoral process and ensure gender parity in representation at all levels.
Similarly, the Maputo Protocol also mandates member states to ensure that there is an increased and effective representation and participation of women at all levels of decision- making, including through affirmative action measures.
However, over a decade later, Botswana is still among countries that are doing very poorly in this area.
The 2019 Global State of Democracy report by IDEA notes that in Africa, significant challenges remain in achieving gender equality and Sustainable Development Goal 5 on women’s political representation. Women in Africa lack equal access to political power and their inclusion remains a major hurdle for most countries including Botswana.
Political science lecturer and Analyst Keaoleboga Dipogiso is of the view that in order to tackle the issue of gender disparity there is a need to first look at its root cause, which is our history.
“It is important to give background to the issue to appreciate that even during the formation of state many years ago women have been peripheral in issues of leadership.
Leadership has always been reserved for the male and the rich. So as time went on not only women but even other marginalised groups have suffered because of this.”
He said the challenge is that in the traditional model that was used even before the post- independence society, the only people who had resources have always been men and they have always used those resources to consolidate their power in positions of leadership even in terms of ideas, “women were not allowed to come forth and share their ideas in places like dikgotla, which promoted the patriarchal outlook and did not address any issues affecting women as they were seen to be of less value than men.”
He noted that the gender disparity is still there in politics because even in terms of other jobs, there were jobs that women were not allowed to do thereby making them lag behind in terms of productivity.
That is why we now have women who are cultured not to believe that they belong to leadership positions even after many industries have changed their policies to be more inclusive of women.
“The problem is, if you keep changing policies without also changing people’s mindset, then the attempt would be futile.
Today we have more women voters compared to men yet the majority of people getting elected are men.”
He said that “while we have the SADC Gender Protocol and other attempts to bring gender parity into leadership positions, it’s still failing because of the mindset of women and our society.
“Women still don’t consider themselves as a group worthy of emancipation. There is no group politics among women because we are still influenced by our culture.
“Even in terms of the economy, even though pol i c i e s have been changed to promote inclusivity, we are still lagging behind because critical leadership positions are still held by men.”
Dipogiso also noted that there is a need to develop participatory models that will enhance the participation of women and other marginalised groups.
He said there is a need to start by empowering them economically and in their families because unless women can also make decisions at home and have access to funds for their political career, they will not be able to compete with men.
In the last general election in 2019, only 11 out of 210 parliamentary candidates were women, representing only five percent of the total number of candidates. This is a decline from 2014 when 17 out of 192 candidates were women.
No women were put forward as presidential candidates. Currently, men hold the vast majority of political seats, even though 55 percent of Batswana voters are women.
Despite all these hurdles, all hope is not lost. According to the ‘ Barriers to political participation of women in Botswana; a study conducted by Democracy Works Foundation ( DWF) after the 2019 general elections, from the identified barriers the study proposes a number of phased interventions that can be undertaken in the short, medium and long terms.
These would include the requisite skills, knowledge and attitude, and capacity- building activities that may be undertaken to improve women’s participation in politics.
The study showed that political engagement by women is critical and political parties are among the most essential institutions for encouraging and cultivating it.
“With women holding less than a quarter of the world’s parliamentary seats, it is evident that political parties can do more to improve women’s political participation and indeed should be aided in doing so.
“Democracy is a virtue that all countries in the world are striving for. Gender equality and women’s empowerment are not simply human rights; they are also necessary for inclusive, egalitarian, and long- term development.”
DWF has also expanded its interventions in Botswana to include a project that aims to provide training, resources, and support to empower women to meaningfully take part in political processes in Botswana.
The end goal of the project is to increase the role and influence of women in Botswana political institutions and decision- making.