A Bill has been tabled in
the Swaziland parliament to ensure 30 percent of members of the House of
Assembly are women. It has taken 12 years to get this far.
Swaziland is ruled by King
Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. The King chooses 10 of
the 65 members of the House of Assembly and 10 members of the 30-strong Senate.
Members of the House of Assembly choose the other 20.
The Constitution that came
into effect in 2006 requires five women to be elected to the Senate by the
House and the King to choose another eight. There have been two national
elections since the Constitution came into effect and the required number of
women members of parliament has not been met.
On representation in the
House of Assembly, the Constitution states, ‘The nominated members of the House
shall be appointed by the King so that at least half of them are women.’
It also requires there are
four female members specially elected from the four regions of Swaziland.
At the last election in 2013 only one woman, Mbabane East MP Esther Dlamini, was elected to the House of Assembly. The King appointed only three women and no women were elected from the four regions.
Following the elections,
the King filled five of the eight designated seats in the Senate with women,
while the House of
Assembly named five women to the Senate.
The Election of Women Members
to the House of Assembly Bill was tabled in the House of Assembly in early
April 2018. It is reported that it should become law before the next national
election takes place at a date in 2018 yet to be set by the King.
The Swazi
Observer, a newspaper in
effect owned by the King, reported on Monday (23 April 2018) that the Bill will
force the House of Assembly to elect four women into it, with one woman coming
from each region. This will only happen if that number has not been elected by
the voting public.
The Bill also sets out a
procedure for selecting the women members. It makes no reference to the
selection of Senate members.
The move to pass a Bill comes after the King
directed parliament to create a legal tool for the election
of women.
Women have always been under-represented in Swazi
parliaments. Generally, in traditional Swazi culture women are treated as
minors under the control of their husbands, fathers or family members.
The percentage of House of
Assembly candidates who were women at the 2008 election was 24 percent. The
figure fell to 17 percent for the 2013 election.
In a voter education
meeting in 2017 held to sensitise chiefs in the kingdom about the 2018 election
the Elections and Boundaries Commission was warned not to encourage the
electorate to vote for women for gender-balance reasons.
The Swazi Observer reported at the time Chief Mdlaka Gamedze, said the
call by many organisations to vote for women may lead to interference with the
people’s choices.
It reported, ‘Instead,
Gamedze urged the EBC team to encourage the freedom to nominate or elect any
member of the society without considering whether it is a male or female.’
It added, ‘Gamedze said the
electorate must be free to vote for candidates who they deem fit to develop
their constituencies.’
At the same meeting the Observer reported, ‘Chief Mvimbi Matse
reported that some women were denied the opportunity to contest for the
elections by their husbands. Matse said there have been instances where women
were nominated during the first stage but later withdrew after their husbands
instructed them to do so.’
That problem was echoed by
women at a voter education meeting at KaGucuka in July 2017.
They said some women in
Swaziland were too scared to stand
as candidates because their husbands would be angry and even disown them.
During the 2008 Swazi national election, women who
campaigned for women to be elected to the House of Assembly were branded
‘evil’ by chiefs.
See also
WIDOWS
CAN STAND IN SWAZI ELECTION
WOMAN
IN PANTS BANNED FROM ELECTION
KING
APPOINTS HIS FAMILY TO PARLIAMENT
KING
APPOINTS 6 OF HIS FAMILY TO SENATE
http://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/king-appoints-6-of-his-family-to-senate.html
No comments:
Post a Comment