SA women in Parliament up 10%
19 April 2004
The number of women in South Africa's new Parliament is set to increase from 120 to 131, a 10% increase, according to calculations by Gender Links.
"With a national assembly of 400 seats, this will result in an overall proportion of 32.8% women in Parliament compared to 30% in 1999", the organisation said in a statement.
"South Africa will now move up in the global ranking of women in parliament from 15th to 11th place, coming after Austria and slightly ahead of Germany", the statement continued. "Rwanda, with 49% women in parliament, is in the lead position in the global league.
"South Africa will also now move to first position in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ranking of women in parliament, with Mozambique and Seychelles close behind at 30% and 29.4% respectively."
The main reason for the latest increase in women's representation in South African politics, Gender Links executive director Colleen Lowe Morna
explained, is the higher majority secured in the April 14 elections by the African National Congress, which should put the number of ANC women Members of Parliament up from 96 in 1999 to 104 in 2004.
The ANC is the only South African political party with a quota for women. "Although the proportion of women on its combined lists in 2004 remained constant at 35% (the same as in 1999)", Lowe Morna said, "the fact that women are evenly distributed in the ANC lists and that the number of ANC seats increased in this election delivered 8 of the 11 more women in the new Parliament".
ANC women will account for 79% of the total number of women in SA's new Parliament, virtually the same proportion as in the last Parliament.
"Although women made a much stronger showing on the lists of opposition parties this year, the total number of women opposition MPs is only set to increase from 24 in 1999 to 27 in the new Parliament", Gender Links said, adding that this was because women
in opposition parties were often not strategically placed on lists, a critical factor for parties that only gain a few seats.
The party with the highest proportion of women MPs is the United Democratic Movement (four out of nine, or 44.4%) followed by Patricia de Lille's Independent Democrats with three out of seven (or 43%) women.
The Democratic Alliance has increased its proportion of women parliamentarians from 6 (15.7%) in 1999 to 13 (26%) in 2004.
Parties with no women MPs are the New National Party, African Christian Democratic Party, United Christian Democratic Party, Minority Front, Freedom Front Plus, and the Azanian People's Organisation.
While praising the ANC for its consistent commitment to increasing women's representation in Parliament, Gender Links said it was "disappointed that the ANC did not make a bolder move during these elections to raise the stakes from 30% to 50%".
The organisation also criticised SA's other political parties
for continuing to "shy away from taking special measures for ensuring greater representation by women. Their performance illustrates that it is not good enough to simply have women on lists. There has to be a commitment to ensuring that they get into Parliament.
"All eyes will now be on the new cabinet. We hope that President Thabo Mbeki will use this opportunity - one that is entirely in his hands - to increase the representation of women in this top decision-making structure from its current level of 30% to gender parity."
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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