On 20 November 2018, Nyakundi Report noted a fresh debate in the National Assembly over a bill that would create nominated women MPs to help Parliament meet the two-thirds gender rule.
The proposal was framed as a way to close the constitutional gap, but it also raised a blunt question: whether adding roughly 80 more MPs would be affordable or even desirable.
The argument for gender equality was not in dispute. The harder issue was how to achieve it without turning Parliament into a larger and more expensive institution.
The article pointed out that progress on representation has usually come through gradual political change, not by immediate legal command. It cited the United States Congress and the UK Parliament as examples where women have taken on a more visible role over time.
Even inside government, the imbalance was said to remain unresolved. The executive branch had not managed to reach the right gender mix among ministers and principal secretaries, which was used to show how difficult the target has been in practice.
Rather than keeping the rule as a strict legal obligation, the piece argued that the Constitution should be amended so the two-thirds requirement becomes an aspirational goal. In that form, it would still guide reform without creating a standard that institutions repeatedly fail to meet.
A more workable option, according to the editorial, would be to amend the Political Parties Act as originally proposed. Under that approach, one-third of a party’s election candidates would have to be women.
That would not guarantee election for all female candidates, but it would increase the number of women entering contests and gradually change the character of politics.
Quote of the day: “I have died many times. I have actually beaten Jesus Christ because he only died once.”
— Robert Mugabe
He resigned on 21 November 2017.
