Florence Zirima
Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellency (WALPE) in partnership with the Election Resource Centre (ERC) is rolling out a campaign called “Get out the Vote Campaign” which aims at encouraging young women to participate in the upcoming elections.
Speaking during a radio show recently, WALPE Training and Outreach Officer Chido Mutakaya said the programme is targeting first time voters especially young women and women living with disabilities to go and vote. Mutakaya also said the programme enables youths and young women to realise their right to vote. “The campaign encourages youths and young women to actually go out and register to vote because registration to vote is the realisation of one’s right. It is a campaign that we are doing targeting especially the first time voters for example young women and women living with disabilities so that they can have a chance to participate in the upcoming elections,” she said.
She also said their organisation has been working with aspiring women leaders across the country’s 10 province. “We have been working with aspiring women leaders across the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe. We have also been encouraging, sensatising and giving them awareness on areas that they can go and register to vote. We are providing information on centres where women leaders can go out and register to vote and we are trying our best to make sure that we engage all our aspiring women leaders,” she said. Mutakaya said the campaign is also being rolled out in rural areas to inform rural young women about the voting process. “We have been moving around especially in the rural areas to make sure that we inform our aspiring women leaders on centres that they can go and vote,” she said.
Speaking on the same programme, ERC Legal Officer Takunda Tsunga said as an organisation, they will make use of different platforms to make sure the information reaches as many citizens as possible before the by-elections. “Our theme is that all citizens who are eligible to vote actually partake in the voting process and we are going on social media space as well as conducting roadshows to make sure that people are well informed,” he said. Tsunga said their organisation is providing youths with free transport to carry them to registration centres. “We are providing shuttle service to be able to take youths from wherever they are located to the registration centres. We are doing this to make voting registration more accessible to the citizens especially youths,” he said.
A report made by the Zimbwabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) on the 30 July harmonised elections reviewed that the number of women who contested as candidates in 2018 harmonised elections was low. “It is clear that the number of women who contested as candidates in political parties remains significantly low as compared to their male counterparts. There were very few female National Assembly candidates: 1648 candidates contested and, of those, only 237 were female. Only 14% of women managed to contest in the election. Of those who contested, only 26 were elected versus 29 women who were elected in 2013. This means that there has been a 2% decrease in the number of women elected in 2018,” reads the report The report further notes that to increase the participation of women in elections, election stakeholders need to support programmes for young women specifically to intensify their skills in leadership, governance, understanding electoral processes and the importance of youth participation. It also says that there is need for intensive voter registration to ensure that young women know their political and electoral rights and the Electoral Commission, civil society and political parties have a duty to ensure that youth participation in Zimbabwean politics is maximized.
Add comment