Women’s representation in local government has increased from 39 per cent in 2011 to 41 per cent in the 3 August 2016 local elections, falling short of South Africa’s regional and international commitments to gender equality.
According to a report released by Gender Links today, 8 December, in 2016 women comprised an all-time record high of 48 per cent of PR candidates, yet only 33 per cent of ward candidates. This has been a recurrent theme in local government in South Africa which has a mixed electoral system at the local level.
Invariably women perform well on the list or PR system in which voters vote for a party rather than an individual, compared to the ward or First Past the Post System in which voters vote both for a party and individual. The disparity in women’s performance reflects the deep-seated structural barriers to women’s political participation. In short, men are still much more likely to be viewed as “leaders” than women.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) is the only party with a 50:50 quota for women in elections. This works well in the PR seats, where the ANC has adopted a “zebra” style of one woman, one man, but not the ward seats, where the target has often not been observed, and in which women are often fielded in the riskier seats.
Fears that South Africa would slide backwards in the elections due to the ANC’s reduced majority overall in the local elections were narrowly averted by the ANC improving the proportion of women who won (from 44 per cent in 2011 to 45 per cent in 2016), as well as a strong or stronger performance by the opposition parties.
The party that performed best, with just shy of 50 per cent of women winning on its ticket is the Economic Freedom Front (EFF). However, this is thanks largely to its strong performance in the PR seats (50 per cent). The EFF performed dismally on gender in the ward seats (18 per cent). Overall, with less than 10 per cent of the seats, this still guaranteed EFF first place with regard to the proportion of women in local government.
At 45 per cent, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) came close to the 50 per cent target, shored up by 61 per cent women in the PR seats, but only 32 per cent in the ward seats.
As in the past, the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) did better in the ward seats (38 per cent) than in PR (34 per cent) and is the only party to have done so. The DA has used this as an argument against quotas, arguing that it empowers women to stand on their own feet and fight in elections, rather than being names on party lists.
Overall, women comprised 55 per cent of all voters. In all the provinces, there are more women voters than men voters. Limpopo province (60 per cent) has the highest number, followed by the Eastern Cape (57 per cent); KwaZulu-Natal (56 per cent); Western Cape, Free State and Mpumalanga (55 per cent each); Northern Cape (54 per cent) and then Gauteng (52 per cent).
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