Source: Quo vadis Women Election Convergence? | The Herald September 27, 2017
Ruth Butaumocho Gender Editor
Five months ago, thousands of women from different political parties countrywide came together to create a political platform to encourage women to participate in next year’s elections as voters and candidates.
Dubbed Women Electoral Convergence 2018#Hervotewins, the campaign got off on a positive note with women from different political parties pledging to support female candidates who would be fielded in various constituencies.
While political agitators tried to hijack the initiative, using it as a platform to plot the ouster of President Mugabe, thousands of women regarded the platform as an avenue to increase their numbers at political parties’ level. The launch itself was a high-profile event attended by prominent female politicians and stakeholders among them MDC-T acting president Dr Thokozani Khupe, Dr Joice Mujuru’s National People’s Party (NPP) president and Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)chairperson Justice Rita Makarau.
Having been shut off in 2013 with Zanu-PF and MDC-T fielding less female candidates in parliamentary and presidential elections, aspiring female politicians regarded the launch of the convergence as a stepping stone to bigger things.
In their wisdom, or lack of it, they thought they had found a springboard to launch their political careers. They might have to wait a little bit longer as it is emerging that the Women Election Convergence could have suffered a stillbirth. One wonders whether conception even happened. With all the strategising, lots of mobilisation of women from all the provinces prior to the launch, it is surprising that four months down the line, there is not much activity going on to sustain the momentum.
Since the backbone of the campaign was the en masse registration of female voters to ensure that at least two million voters will be mobilised to vote, there has been low turn-out of women at most centres in the ongoing Biometric Voter Registration exercise taking place throughout the country. A recent visit to one of the voter registration centres in Mbare revealed an appalling status where women constituted less than 10 percent of people who had come to register as voters in next year’s elections.
One then wonders how, when will the Women Election Convergence mobilise its targeted constituency to ensure that they register as voters, a few months before the elections. While the conveners of the initiative are yet to report on the successes and failures of the project to date, a statement by event organiser MDC’s Priscilla Misihairabwi- Mushonga during a wide ranging interview with a local radio station points out to a programme that failed, before it even took off.
Speaking to Star FM’s George Msumba on the Late Night Politics programme recently, Mrs Misihairabwi-Mushonga confirmed that Women Election Convergence was still in existence but had since taken a different approach to mobilise its intended figure of two million women.
Mrs Misihairabwi-Mushonga said they had since abandoned public meetings and now needed to mobilise women on the need to vote through different platforms such as social media, word of mouth during gatherings like funerals and weddings, as well as just reminding each other informally on the need to take up the available political space.
This is a climbdown for a progamme that had a grandiose launch, carrying hopes of ordinary women, although others had long dismissed it after allegations emerged that it was foreign funded, a development that Mrs Misihairabwi-Mushonga tried very hard to brush aside.
“WEC18 is a grouping of women political activists from nine political parties with two others having asked to join . . . WEC18 has no candidate, women have a free choice on who to vote for. It is not the WEC18 objective to push for any candidate,” she said this a few days after the launch.
“We understand that some men will worry because it is in their nature to worry each time women meet without them.” Apart from whittling hopes of thousands of aspiring female politicians who for long had been forced to the perimeter fence within their political parties, Women Election Convergence never lasted a mile.
If its still in existence, then it has probably gone on a sabbatical, which is unfortunate considering that this is the time when it should have been at full throttle, preaching to its constituency. Probably this explains why one of the architects of WEC, Dr Mujuru has decided to go solo in mobilising women to register.
Her decision to go solo instead of working within the outfit could be an indication that centre can no longer hold. Last week, Dr Mujuru kicked off a campaign to get female voters to register for the polls next year. Her party’s spokesperson Gift Nyandoro said his party had gone on a nationwide mobilisation initiative to encourage young women to vote.
While the nation waits to know the fate of Women Election Convergence, it is critical to point out that the inclusion of women in political space is an important discourse that should not be left to wishful thinkers and fly-by-night individuals who want to mortgage the female populace for a few pieces of silver.
It will not be foreign funding, nor misplaced ideologies coming from a few individuals that will change the waning fortunes of aspiring female politicians. The majority of women need a sustained campaign, mentoring and diverse thinking within their constituency to assist them in fulfilling their aspirations of equality within political parties and in the Government.
They are pinning their hopes on other women for a new normal in politics to ensure that their numerical significance does not become a curse in politics, but helps them to get into public offices.
They believe their large numbers as voters should work in their favour and give them a competitive edge and muscle to push for recognition. Women’s unparalleled resilience and support to political parties is legendary. It would be so unfair, patronising and worse still evil, to be taken for granted by other women who should be sympathetic to their course and assist them to achieve their aspirations.
Their discourse for women’s political inclusion needs serious minded people, who are beyond party politics and are neither hungry for power nor a few pieces of silver. It is a discourse that remains open for individuals who wish to see more women in power and be part of national development not as bystanders but also as decision makers.
COMMENTS