BY DARLINGTON CHILUBA
AFRICA has recently produced a notable number of female Heads of State particularly from Malawi, Tanzania, Liberia and Ethiopia, all of whom have stood shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. Ethiopia is slightly different because executive power rests in the Prime Minister but the fact is unchanged. Mrs. Joyce Banda, Samia Suluhu Hassan, Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf and Sahle-Work Zewde are these remarkable women, respectively.
There are other women of indomitable character, whose very mention exudes great respect equal to or more than any given institutional position. Mrs. Winnie Madizikela Mandela is one such example, among others. Nigeria, Namibia, Angola, Morocco and indeed most of Africa have female heroines that fought for the liberation of those nations from colonial rule and advocated for equality of rights and persons post-independence.
It is no surprise then, that all 55 member states of the African Union (AU) adopted Article 29 of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance at the Eighth Ordinary Session of The Assembly held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in January 2007. Infact, the first condition under Article 29 which deals entirely with women, says that ëState Parties shall recognize the crucial role of women in development.í
This clause does not speak to African nations making room to accommodate a weaker group or gender; instead, the clause acknowledges that national development will be meaningless and inconsequential if women are not included in institutions of State. In other words, nations created by the sacrifice of both men and women should not, in the final scenario, exclude the same women from decision making. The error to exclude women from leadership, whether deliberate or not, is something most countries have acknowledged overtime and are changing – or attempting.
In Zambia, for instance, the 1964 and 1991 Constitutions did not outrightly mention women in their texts. An example is the Preamble of the 1991 Constitution which read, in part, that we are ëDetermined to ensure the rights of all ëmení…in shaping the destiny of their own mother land.í It was assumed that the term men included women.
The danger was that cultural, institutional and other flaws that impeded women from participating in State and national matters were potentially ignored. This is not to suggest that women were totally absent in political and economic activity during that period, 1964 -1995. We are merely stating the potential to institutionalize the exclusion of women and their contribution in national matters if policies and laws are ambiguous.
As such, the 1996 Constitution identified this anomaly so that the text in the preamble changed so that it now stated that we the people of Zambia ëRECOGNISE the equal worth of men and women in their rights to participate, and freely determine and build a political, economic and social system of their own free choiceí. The 2016 amended Constitution maintains and builds on this necessity with each step fully acknowledging that more can be done. The Constitution in its preamble deliberately acknowledges the necessity for laws to be clear and concise.
In Zambia, at State level, two of the three arms of government have been led by women. The Judiciary had a female Chief Justice who earlier served as the first Judge of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) when it was formed in the 1990s. The Legislature is currently led by a female Speaker, the first so far at that high level. Only the Executive has not yet had a female leader – that is, President.
Of course, there have been other firsts in the Executive such as the first woman full cabinet Minister in the 1990s; and first woman Minister of Finance, among others, in the same era. Building from that, Zambia has now had two female Vice-Presidents under two different administrations, both easily capable and able women of State.
Judging by the quality in the current female leaders in elected offices, whether Mayors or Members of Parliament, it appears that the reality of being a woman will become secondary in the near future as focus will solely depend on quality of leadership and skill required by a given position. What is unquestionable now, is that no state can be fully functional and consequential without the presence of able women participating in matters of state and nationhood.
