Why women’s participation in Uganda politics is cosmetic

Political parties are to blame for male dominance

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Political parties in Uganda have a long way to go to improve the position of women in their ranks. This according to a study by Kyambogo University lecturer, Hannah Muzee, of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration. She is a scholar of parliamentary politics in Uganda, with a focus on women’s participation.

Her views are published in a paper in the Journal of Asian and African Studies entitled: `Powerless? Gender Regimes and Women’s Place in Uganda’s Political Parties’.

In the paper, Muzee says she set out to study the country’s political parties to identify women’s place in them.

She examined the power structures of six of the 26 registered political parties using their documents, such as constitutions, that showed the party structures. She also studied the National Resistance Movement, Democratic Party, Forum for Democratic Change, Alliance for National Transformation, Uganda People’s Congress and the National Unity Platform.

An abstract to her paper argues that although multiparty politics in Uganda in some ways opened the political space for women, it also reinforced the patriarchal nature of parliamentary and electoral politics.

“Women are increasingly used as appendages and tools to further the political dominance of the ruling government. So, while they seem to be visible, their voices and substantive representation is controlled by the parties’ executive wings,” it says.

Muzee’s paper identifies and describes the gender regimes of Ugandan political parties, showing how women are systematically alienated by party politics.

The analysis of party constitutions and structures revealed antipathy towards gender equality demonstrated in male dominance of top positions and positions of valuable portfolios, deputisation of women and the use of women’s leagues to promote party agendas. Although women’s participation is supported legislatively, there is a need for women’s leagues to operate autonomously from the party.

In a related article in the online journal, The Conversation, Muzee writes that while most political party constitutions have a 40% minimum quota for women’s representation in their formal structure, none has made good on this commitment in the nearly two decades that Uganda has been a multiparty state. My study found that women’s representation averaged 30% and below.

In her study, she says she found that Uganda’s multiparty arrangement has tokenised women in the political system.

Electoral gender quotas in Uganda – first introduced in 1989 – have increased women’s numbers in Uganda’s parliament to 34%. Today there are 189 women out of 557 members of parliament.

But women politicians in Uganda continue to be restricted to minority representation. They are constantly battling stereotypes that seek to maintain the status quo of male dominance in political spaces. The electorate has additionally grown accustomed to believing that since women have seats reserved for them, they should stay out of the race for open seats.

One of the reasons for this continued marginalisation is that the country’s political parties have done little to empower women. Yet they are the first hurdle that women politicians have to clear, not only to get into parliament but to become effective.

The reality is that political party affiliation provides one of the most viable avenues for women’s entry into politics – the alternative would be to vie as an independent candidate with no affiliation to a political party. Party support provides the much-needed financial resources for successful campaigning that women are normally unable to access. Political parties therefore act as gatekeepers by determining who gets into political office.

Therefore, women – like men – will tend to gravitate towards a party that can provide the financial resources needed to campaign and get into office. In Uganda, this tends to be the National Resistance Movement. The ruling party has been in power for over 30 years, and because of its popularity and apparent control of state resources, it presents the most viable path to parliament.

Makerere University law don and gender activist, Prof. Sylvia Tamale first explored this phenomenon in her year 2000 book, `When Hens Begin To Crow: Gender And Parliamentary Politics In Uganda’.

Prof. Tamale described how, among African countries at the time, Uganda was unique in its affirmative action program for women. She described how in the late 1980s, President Yoweri Museveni announced his belief that Uganda’s successful development depended on increased gender equity and backed his opinions by setting several women-centered policies in motion, including a 1989 rule that at least 39 seats in the Ugandan parliament be reserved for women.

In her fascinating study, based on in-depth interviews with both male and female parliamentarians, women in nongovernmental organizations, and rural residents of Uganda, Tamale explored how women’s participation in Ugandan politics has unfolded and what the impact has been for gender equity.

The book examined how women had, up to that point in time, adapted their legislative strategies for empowerment in light of Uganda’s patriarchal history and social structure. She also looked at the consequences and implications of women’s parliamentary participation as a result of affirmative action handed down by the president, rather than pushed up from a grassroots movement.

A review of the book published by Routledge that has been extensively reproduced here said, although focusing on Uganda, Tamale’s study was relevant to other African and non-African countries grappling with the twin challenges of democracy and development.

Women’s presence in political parties is meant to depict a semblance of gender equality. However, there is limited commitment to ensuring that barriers against women’s effective political participation are addressed. This significantly “others” women, rather than granting them active participation.

For instance, in Uganda’s 2006 election – the first under the country’s new multiparty dispensation – the National Resistance Movement, the ruling party, politicised the quota system on the campaign trail. Its leaders emphasised that women owed the party gratitude for helping to increase their involvement in parliamentary politics.

Muzee says, in her view, this propagated women’s dependency on the regime and painted them as victims of patronage.

Inbuilt inequality

She says in political parties, unequal gender relations are visible in their structures and processes. The tasks and positions meant for men and women are different. There is a division of labour, with the position of party president, for instance, often the preserve of men, while women deputise them.

In the National Resistance Movement, the second vice-chairperson has always been a woman. The party’s overall structure, however, largely remains gendered and focused on men. In its central executive committee, for instance, there is only one woman out of nine members.

Party structures also reinforce traditional belief systems when it comes to the acceptable behaviour of a politician. Women’s leagues or wings that are meant to advance women’s political participation and advocate for women’s issues within the party are often used for care or social issues.

The Ugandan case exemplifies the secondary status of women in political parties.

Muzee says across her survey, while women’s leagues were provided for in the party structures, their duties and rights were not elaborated on. In most cases, their activities were managed and approved by the party executive. They were mainly used for logistical support and to mobilise the women constituency during campaigns. And in cases where party leaders meet only quarterly or twice a year, it’s unlikely they would have the time to thoroughly interrogate, or even include, women’s issues on the agenda.