Focus on Rights

Returning to the ward system at local level
Comparison is often made between South Africa's constitutional reform processes, notably a triumph in manifold respects, (despite the critics who predicted that the reforms would collapse once Mandela leaves), and the failed Sri Lankan attempts from 1994.

South Africa laid claim to all, if not many, of the positive elements in these processes as evidenced by the commitment of her political leaders and the amazing involvement of ordinary people. On the other hand, Sri Lanka typified the negatives in this parallel exercise. However, the purpose of this column is not to dwell on these points of despondent contrast but rather, to look at the specific area of gender equality in politics, occasioned, in part, by this week's Cabinet decision to bring in mechanisms ensuring that, at least one third of the elected representatives to local councils are women.

Whether this would involve a gender quota for nominations, (in line with the youth quota which decreed, since 1990, that 40% of candidates at local and provincial government had to be youth candidates, i.e., between the ages of 18 and 35 years), or whether it would go so far as to ensure reserved seats for women, yet remains to be seen.

Whichever it maybe, the need for some sort of mechanism has been clear for quite some time. Despite Sri Lanka's much paraded, (though demonstrably superficial), literacy levels, a higher development index and a past record of women at the helm of governance including the world's first Prime Minister, the number of women in the political processes are lower than India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

All these countries have specific mechanisms whereby women are allowed some sort of preferential entry into politics at the local level, ranging from reserved seats to reservations on the nomination lists, discussion of which is not possible in this column due to space constraints.

However, their experiences make nonsense of the claim put forward by certain parties that special mechanisms are not needed for this purpose. It is expected that a thorough study will be made of these systems by the Cabinet committee appointed to work out the exact nature of the amendments needed to Sri Lanka's laws.

The comparison between South Africa and Sri Lanka however has an interest all its own given that both countries favour the proportional representation (PR) electoral system. South Africa uses the closed party list system of PR, where the party selects the candidate for appointment from a list that is made available to the public. Like in Sri Lanka, the experiences of women's only political parties have not been that positive, as for example the inability of the Women's Party, led by feminist artist Nina Romm to secure a single parliamentary seat, despite a low cut-off threshold in the 1999 elections.

However, the use of a 30% quota for women on the electoral lists in the 1994 and 1999 elections by the African National Congress (ANC) has been singularly successful. There was one tremendously important reason for this success. The ANC had, within its ranks, significant numbers of committed and formidable women politicians fashioned by the freedom struggle in South Africa, who were able to use the nominations quota effectively to enter and influence political and governance processes. At that point, the high proportion of women MPs made the South African parliament the seventh highest in the world in terms of women's parliamentary representation.

Sri Lanka, on the other hand, lacks that history of blood, sweat and tears. Activist women politicians have been few and far in between. In addition, its convoluted constitutional and electoral process have prejudiced women even more.

What we have is an open list system with the local innovation of marking three preferences that was introduced into PR, whereby voters are required to vote for one party and then choose three candidates from the party list as their preferred representatives. Though PR led to a marginal increase of women legislators in Parliament when the system was in its infancy, even this benefit has become progressively diluted through the years.

Within major political parties, PR has, in fact, led to an entrenching of a 'woman unfriendly' political system where the post PR growth of gargantuan party apparatuses subordinating the role of the individual member of parliament have been elitist and gender insensitive. Neither has the National List mechanism been utilised to benefit women by either of the two majority parties. Hilariously, it is only the JVP that has seen fit on occasion, to use this device to bring in women into the parliamentary assembly.

PR has also led commonly to intra-party as well as extra-party electoral violence where each candidate contests not only opposing candidates but also from his or her own party in order to capture one of the three coveted preference votes. Immense financial resources are also a sine qua non in electioneering, which covers an entire electoral district and not a particular electorate.

The party is thus compelled to choose a candidate that can most hold his or her own financially as well as in terms of brute strength against opposing candidates. Inevitably, the candidates thus chosen are females from established political families whose political involvement do not lead to any significant political empowering of their less privileged sisters.

The present Cabinet decision to change this method of political entry heralds welcome thinking on the part of the government. However, superficial amendment to electoral laws will not suffice. In a context where we do not have the proper working of the party democratic system to the extent to which South Africa has succeeded, it would be suicidal to advocate that the open list PR system be replaced by a closed list system.

Rather, there needs to be a through revision of the electoral systems at local government level and perhaps a return to the old ward system which promoted a closer relationship between the candidate and the voter where money was not the determinant factor.

In the alternative, we would only have more and more women who are wives, sisters and daughters of corrupt and power hungry male politicians entering the fray as proxy candidates. Far better, it would be therefore if the proposed amendments were never effected.

Back to Columns