Balancing gender books a headache for ANC
Ruling party reluctantly accepts communities prefer men
As the ANC puts final touches to its candidates’ lists today for the upcoming municipal election, women candidacy for wards is once again expected to make for a dismal reading.
The party has indicated that its comprehensive list – a combination of proportional representation and ward lists – of its public representatives is 50/50 in terms of gender parity, with 25% youth representation.
However, a closer look at the ward list points to a major discrepancy and exclusion of women in their attempts to directly represent their communities as councillors, as the lists for ward candidates is dominated by men.
This much was confirmed by ANC deputy secretary Jessie Duarte, who indicated earlier this week that while there was disappointment about the poor showing of women on ward lists, the party had to respect popular vote, as it is the will of communities. The party submitted a list of about 10,000 potential local government councillors to the Electoral Commission of SA on Tuesday.
Over the years, the ANC has been heavily using its proportional representative (PR) lists to offset the poor outcomes of its envisaged gender parity in the nomination of ward candidates.
PR candidates play a crucial role in municipal governance, as the few who top PR lists are mostly lined up to take crucial positions such as the Troika (mayor, speaker and chief whip) as well as being deployed as MMCs and chair of council committees.
But ward councillors have inherent power and leadership positions as they directly represent communities when elected, and are responsible for being at the coalface of service delivery at the local government level.
Some have argued that the poor success of women in their run for ward candidature is a microcosm of the patriarchal patterns ANC, which is almost overwhelmingly led by men, with women aiding their marginalisation by voting for them.
ANC head of organising Nomvula Mokonyane says consistent dominance of ward candidature by men is a reflection, not of the ANC but the communities and their attitude towards women and their
capacity to lead.
“It is a reflection of the society we live in, which mostly assumes that it is only men who can be their representatives and leaders.
The ANC and the list process alone cannot correct that.
We need to do a lot of ground work before the nomination processes in the communities to conscientise them to understand that women can assume these roles,” Mokonyane says.
While party’s top brass may be putting a lot of measures to simultaneously bring a semblance of legitimacy and crediperson
bility to its internal process as well as ensure overall gender parity, it appears that it will take a long time before women are adequately elected as community representatives if there is no shift of mindset at local level about their role.
Mokonyane says she had been roped in to intervene in 11 wards in Johannesburg and Tshwane where women preferred candidates were openly pressured to withdraw and give way to male leaders.
“We had to strike off some of the nominations in Tshwane because our own leaders were visiting women at night and telling them not to avail themselves. Women themselves have to be encouraged not to retreat or assist this dominance of male candidates, because even women themselves are not innocent in this,” she says.
Johannesburg ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) chair
Ndivhuwo Sekoba says there are many wards in the city that have always been led by men since the dawn of democracy and that the use of money to influence support had been the hindrance in changing the pattern, even as women were majority in communities.
“The issue of resources is a big problem.
You will find that a woman has more than 50% support in the ANC branch but will have less than 10% in the community meetings sometimes and you ask yourself why.
It is a serious challenge,” Sekoba says.
She says she was, however, disappointed when women overwhelmingly voted for male candidates in the recent ANC regional mayoral candidate selection despite four of the six contenders being women and women dominating the meeting.
“When we were voting for a mayor there were many women but they never voted for a woman,” Sekoba says.
Some of the women in the ANC who spoke to Sowetan said the party was inherently reluctant to give power to women, even at local level.
ANC Youth League convener Nonceba Mhlauli, who stood as a ward candidate in Cape Town in the 2016 elections, says the anomaly of ward list dominance by men has to be addressed pointedly by the party if it is to change.
“I don’t think the ANC is doing a quarter of the conscientising that needs to happen at both branch level and community level.
It is good that the party is enforcing the 50/50 parity, but it is very shocking that these lists of ward candidates are mostly just men.
It is very rare to even find a young woman,” she says.
‘‘ The issue of resources is a big problem