Results of the recent national elections showed a general decline in female representations at the National Assembly.
Advocates for inclusive democracy have expressed concerns about the low number of women, youth and persons with disabilities elected into the National Assembly.
They raised the concerns on Thursday during a workshop organised by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) on the outcome of the 25 February presidential and National Assembly elections.
The theme of the workshop was “Reflection on inclusive practices of political parties in the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly Elections: Implication for future.”
The event featured presentations by different civil society organisations working on inclusive democracy.
The results of the elections showed a general decline in female representations at the National Assembly.
Although women representation in the 360-member House of Representatives increased by two from 13 (3.6 per cent) in the current 9th session to 15 in the recent elections, it declined in the 109-member Senate from eight (7.3 per cent) to three.
Speaking on the decline in the number of women elected into the federal parliament, the Director of Democracy and Governance at the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), Adewale Aderemi, said democracy is not complete unless it is inclusive.
He stated that “there is a relapse in terms of representation of these (vulnerable) groups that we have mentioned in the coming government.”
Mr. Aderemi, a professor, announced that there is an ongoing effort by NILDS and WFD to develop a scientific framework to determine inclusion by political parties.
“We seek to work with political parties to develop scientific parameters for measuring inclusivity in all the political parties. If your party is not measuring up, with evidence, we can look you in the eyes and say that your practices are not inclusive as a political party.
“That will be the end goal of the project we have with WFD. Until we make our process inclusive, we have not gotten to the end of our democratic journey,” he stated.
In his remarks, Adebowale Olorunmola, the country representative WDF, said inclusion by political parties must extend to all vulnerable groups.
He said there is a need to review the electoral process to determine how the process has excluded any disadvantaged group.
“This gathering is to enable us to reflect on the presidential and National Assembly elections which were held on 25 February. It is important to note that election is not what happened on Election Day, election is what happens throughout the election circle.
“When we are doing our reflection, let us cast our minds back to the process through which candidates emerged on the ballots. How inclusive was the process? Let us look at the campaign, how inclusive was the campaign? When you talk about the process of the emergence, the conditions that are attached, does it promote inclusion?” he said.
Ene Ede, the chief facilitator of Equity Advocacy, in her presentation said political parties must do more to improve the situation.
Ms Ede noted that women, youth and PWD had a poor outing in the 2023 polls. As short term measures, she stated that they can go for the low-hanging fruits by taking up appointments as aides and getting mentored in the process for future elections.
She said efforts must be made to ensure affirmative action to bridge the gap.
Another facilitator, Jide Ojo, explained that deficiency can only be addressed through quotas and affirmative action.
“The way to go is to have affirmative action and quota system so that you know that if you are going to have 10 positions, three minimally will be women.“In Uganda, they have a provision in their constitution in section 76 that promotes the inclusion of women; women have reserved seats across the parliament in Uganda.
“They have 10 seats reserved for the military and out of these 10 seats, two must be women. And then there are five seats reserved for the youth, of which one must be a woman. Five seats are reserved for labour workers, one must be a woman and five for PWD, one must be a woman.
“This deliberate and intentional act has made Uganda have many high female representations in parliament,” he stated.
Culled from PREMIUM TIMES
