By Mads Bøndergaard, JPO/Ethiopia
At first glimpse it looks like a revolution. Never before has so many women been elected for parliament, regional and city councils. It is tempting to see the development as part of the movement of strong African women influencing politics recent years. The trend is represented by the newly elected president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson, and the Rwandian Parliament with more than 50% of the seats belonging to women. In the case of Ethiopia, a big part of the explanation is affirmative action spurred possibly by external pressure from the African Union to include more women in politics.
In line with the progressive Ethiopian Constitution, inviting for such affirmative initiatives, the leading EPRDF coalition adopted a 30% female quota for its seats in parliament during the newly held election. Therefore 118 out of EPRDF's 327 newly elected parliamentarians are women today.
Except for the EPRDF women, women are still sidelined in Ethiopian politics. Thus, the opposition parties are still dominated by men with only 8 out of 214 parliamentarians being women. Only the Middle East can show parallel low female percentages. Women with political ambitions in Ethiopia seem to face an easy choice: it is EPRDF, or a career on the bench.
Exceptions are of course found. 31-year old Shewaye is married and belong to that exclusive group of women that have been elected for an opposition party for the Addis Ababa City Council.
It was the first time she ran for a seat - and actually also the first time she voted: "These elections were the first with a real opposition challenging the present government. I have received great support for my project. Not only from my family, but also from neighbors and work colleagues and of course a lot of voters that I don't know personally"
As a result of the opposition parties' lack of ability to include the women, many women decided to run private campaigns without support from a party. Without exception this resulted in defeats. But why then do the women not join hands and form their own "women party"? "This exactly shows how weak our society is, and how much we have to learn when it comes to organising along interest lines", Shewaye says.
Her husband is a good example of the fact that Ethiopian men can be strong proponents of women rights. The support from his side has been invaluable: "Without my husband’s support, it would not work out - having an engagement like this has many costs, one of them being limited time with the family. The trust from Shewaye's husband is so significant that he would not be surprised if he one day saw her as the leader of Ethiopia. Many stones must be removed before that dream can come true.
One of DanChurchAid’s Ethiopian partners, Kembatti Mentti Gezzimma, KMG, (see www.kmgselfhelp.org) works to secure better conditions for women and a greater participation in societal life in the Kembatta region. One of KMG’s projects was to get ten women running for the elections. But the men in the district as well as the established party system refused. Some of the women were threatened to withdraw their candidacy, school teachers running for parliament were removed to distant areas and the women's husbands were told to control their wives.
However, KMG is not giving up: The organisation will make another attempt at the forthcoming regional elections.