DEMGroup’s account on the participation of women in the upcoming 2011 Electoral process in Uganda

Uganda is approaching its second national general election since Her return to multi-party democracy in 2006. Acknowledging past electoral problems and noting that the forthcoming elections may be very competitive and turbulent, DEMGroup, a consortium of four civil society organizations i.e Action for development (Centre for Democratic Governance) Uganda joint Christian council, and Transparency international Uganda; is undertaking a series of activities to foster free, fair and transparent elections in accordance with national, regional and international standards. Particularly among these was a press conference held on 20th Jan.2011.

Having been attended by over 30 journalists from different media houses, an open door was established for the statement to have good coverage in the country.

Ms. Regina Bafaki, a board member for DEMGroup addressed the press. She noted that the statement was a follow up activity for a study that was carried out to evaluate the representation of women in the political process of Uganda.

Drawing on their 215 constituency observers, 22 regional observers, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, Electoral Commission data and recent opinion pollings, DEMGroup established the following key findings and recommendations:

• 63% more women are participating as candidates for affirmative action seats in 2011 than did in 2006. In the future, performance must be tracked to determine if the increased competition within affirmative action seats results in better quality policy outcomes for women.

• It is clear that both men and women support the idea of gender equality in political representation. Both men and women listed many positive attributes that women can and do bring to politics that could make them more desirable as elected officials. Despite this the same respondents (both male and female) would overwhelmingly support a man over a woman if they were contesting.

• The above finding partially explains why women make up only 37% of the candidates in the 2011 election though they are legally eligible to contest for 100% of the seats. At Parliamentary level in the 2011 elections, only 46 out of 1269 (4%) are contesting. In 2006 it was 28 women out of 808 at 3.4%.

• Both socio-economic and cultural barriers hinder women’s competition and endearing non-affirmative action seats. Poor and rural communities depend upon and therefore prioritize women to play other roles in society including caring for the family and supporting the family livelihood rather than public service.

• Activists seeking to promote equality in politics and the positive policy outcomes that come along note that the most important and strategic step to take is the move from knowledge distribution to action oriented strategies that give women more tools to participate in public life.

• Political Parties’ provision of equal opportunities for women and men to represent the parties should be worked upon to have clear quotas for key positions. The Electoral Commission nomination returns, participation of women for all political party positions shows NRM leading with 43% followed by UPC with 32%, FDC and DP at 31%. PPP16%, UFA has 16% while PPD has 0% women representation. Even with this portrayal there are still no mechanisms in place to guarantee women participation in party politics. DEMGroup therefore recommends that women’s activism for gender equality in politics should target political parties and insist that each party must clearly state the proportion of women to men (quota ) for positions in party leadership and constituency representation. South Africa ‘s practice is very positive where proportional representation is used across all political parties and therefore; Uganda can draw lessons from there.

• Violence against women continues to happen. Judging from the community responses given in focus groups and surveys, its not s matter that’s taken seriously. Most of the violence is talked about but not reported. Against this background, DEMGroup demanded for more documentation focusing on violence against women during elections. The organization has a free hot-line ‘6090 Ugandan Watch; The Citizens’ Reporting Hotline’ where Ugandan citizens can call/ text to detail such cases as well.

Submitted By Sandra Nassali

Public Relations & Communications Officer

Action For Development