Mutare, Zimbabwe – More than half of the 6.5 million registered voters set to cast their ballots in Zimbabwe’s hotly contested presidential, local municipality and parliamentary elections on Wednesday, are women.
Despite dominating the voter population, women have been reduced to mostly cheerleaders in the political landscape.
In June, when the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced 11 presidential candidates, there were no women. In 2018, there were four female candidates.
Two female presidential candidates, Elisabeth Valerio of United Zimbabwe Alliance (UZA) and Linda Masarira of the Labour, Economists and African Democrats (LEAD), were excluded by the ZEC for late submission of nomination papers and late payment of nomination fees, respectively.
Both female presidential candidates took the matter to court. Valerio won her case and the ZEC was forced to accept her nomination papers, but Masarira was not as fortunate.
In the National Assembly, there are 70 female candidates compared with 637 men across the 210 constituencies, according to the Election Resource Centre, comprising 11 percent of candidates – down from 14 percent in 2018.
‘Disappointing’
Analysts have said that the declining number of female candidates was an indication that political power structures have remained deeply patriarchal.
“It is quite disappointing that women failed to make it to the ballot after all the work and investment they had made to get into leadership over the past five years,” said Sitabile Dewa, an executive director and founder of Women’s Academy For Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE). “It is sad that only one woman presidential candidate made it after the intervention of the courts.”
The constitution, she told Al Jazeera, clearly stipulated gender balance but political parties were not following through.
The 2013 Constitution sets aside 60 seats of the 270 seats in parliament for women through proportional representation. They are distributed to political parties based on the number of seats won in each province.
This constitutional requirement had been set to expire this year but was brought back through an amendment made to the constitution by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Other sections of the constitution require political parties to put in place mechanisms for women to run for constituency-basedseats.
Nevertheless, analysts have said that there has been a lack of political will to bring more women into governance.
“The primary responsibility to promote gender equality lies with political parties. Lack of political will and sincerity to promote equality on the part of political parties is the main reason why the country has failed on the gender equality mark,” Dewa said.
Glanis Changachirere, a team leader at Institute for Young Women Development (IYWD), said there was a need for commitment to advance the rights of women from independent commissions like the ZEC.
“How Elisabeth Valerio landed on the ballot paper testifies how women’s political participation and representation is itself a struggle within the struggle for democracy,” she said. “The courts should be a last resort and not the starting place for women to seek the recognition of their rights.”
Changachirere worried that the lack of women on the ballot threatened to reverse the gains made over time towards gender equality and was waiting to see how many female candidates are elected when results are announced.
“The 11 percent [number of women] who made it will further decrease after voting as some of the aspiring women leaders are contesting in constituencies their parties rarely win,” Dewa said.
‘Second-class citizens’
In previous elections, many women failed to raise the funds required by the ZEC to file nomination papers.
For this election, the ZEC raised the nomination fees, making it harder for independent candidates and political parties with less funding.
Presidential candidates paid $20,000 while parliamentary candidates parted away with $1,000 and $100 for council candidates. In contrast, in 2018, presidential candidates paid $1,000, while legislators paid $50.
Masarira, one of the disqualified presidential candidates, struggled to raise the $20,000 nomination fee and told Al Jazeera that it was a barrier for anyone aspiring to get into politics.
“We need regulation of candidate nomination fees to make the fees affordable to every Zimbabwean,” she said.
When the ZEC gazetted the enormous nomination fees last year, there was a backlash from critics, particularly women, arguing that the move was grossly unreasonable.
Masarira told Al Jazeera that the increasing costs could lead to an imminent decline in women’s political participation.
“It is sad that women continue to be viewed as second-class class citizens in Zimbabwe and viewed as only good enough to cast a vote and not good enough to be a presidential or parliamentary candidate,” she said.
In March this year, the nomination fees were challenged in court, which declared the high fees to be unconstitutional.
But Parliament, through the Parliamentary Legal Committee, upheld the ZEC’s gazetted fees, arguing in their report that there were no contraventions to the constitution by the electoral body.
Changachirere said women, who are the majority of the poor, suffer financial exclusion.
“Increasing the cost of political participation and representation like that clearly further marginalises women from politics,” she said.
“ZEC was insensitive to the current economic challenges facing the country, the fees were supposed to reflect the state of the economy. Elections must not be monetised,” she said.
Changachirere said barriers, including high nomination fees, were pushing women away from constituency-based seats.
“The continued decline of women who contest on the constituency-based seats, with many relying on the proportional representation seats, shows how hard and uneven the playing field is for women across all levels of governance,” she said.
In 2018, election observers from the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) called for political parties to make the political climate more favourable to women’s participation in politics.
But leading political parties, including the governing ZANU-PF and CCC, have yet to implement the recommendations of the election observers.
Human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said Zimbabwean society is strongly masculine and very few women get support from those around them, given the generally negative attitudes associated with women in politics.
“Our highly violent, personalised, dirty and dangerous political environment is not for the faint-hearted and this discourages women from participating in politics,” she told Al Jazeera.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
