RESEARCH AND ADVOCACY UNIT (RAU)
Introduction
THE elections in 2018 can only be described as deeply disappointing for the women’s movement and its attempt to manifest the 50/50 intention of the constitution.
The combination of the first-post-the-post (FPTP) electoral system and the resort to the gender quota by the two major political parties resulted in fewer women being directly elected to parliament. Thus, while Zimbabwe can claim one of the higher percentage of women in Parliament in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), this comes at the expense of women having full power to influence policymaking. For this reason, strong arguments can be in favour of reforming the Zimbabwean electoral system
away from an FPTP system to one of Proportional Representation (PR), The arguments for this are covered in brief detail, following previous analyses (RAU 2020 (a); RAU 2020 (b)). Notwithstanding the need for reform, and with elections pending in August 2023, we speculate on how women will fare in 2023.
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