Women activists have steppedup the campaign to have affirmative action enacted in Parliament before the general elections are held.

Dubbed the, ‘No affirmative Action, No votes’ campaign, thousands of women from all over the country, came out in unity in Nairobi during the African Women’s Day on June 5th to declare their stand on the motion.

The campaign to press for affirmative action (AA) is intended to promote women’s active participation in the political sphere.

Women make up to 52 per cent of the population but are underrepresented in parliament.
Of the 222 MPs in Parliament, only 18 are women - 10 were elected and eight nominated. In the local authorities, women hold an insignificant 377 out of 2,837 seats.

With their strength in numbers, it would be a foregone conclusion that women would get more than the 30 per cent representation recommended in affirmative action proposals.

Although Political party manifestos have underlined AA clauses, they are yet to be implemented.

However, the UNIFEM Regional Director Eastern Africa, Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, says that as much as women need to advocate for affirmative action nationwide and within these parties, they also need to strive hard to be visible within the parties.

A good number of women aspirants are currently agonizing about which party to join, knowing that the odds are stacked against them given that most parties in Kenya are male strongholds.

With party nominations in sight, the delay in getting into the party structures and securing strategic positions in order to buttress their campaigns is especially challenging for novice women aspirants: “Affirmative action within political parties will create another opportunity for women, but they have to also be visible within these parties, they need to work hard for it,” stresses Nyaradzai.

AA has drawn a lot of debate in Kenya. A bill was first tabled in parliament in 2000. This was under the regime of former President Daniel Arap Moi. He openly declared his opposition to the issue saying that it had no place in Kenyan leadership. With his words, the bill that had been brought to the house after a series of spirited lobbying sessions was shelved.

Nevertheless, hopes intensified in 2003 when AA was entrenched into a draft constitution that resulted from the National Constitutional Conference which met 2003/2004 to review the country’s constitution.

But again the future of AA became bleak, when the draft document was rejected at a national referendum held in November 2005, placing Kenya firmly behind her neighbours, Uganda and Rwanda, all of which have increased women’s participation in parliament through the AA principle.

With women making 48.8 percent of parliament, Rwanda has surpassed even first world democracies by coming close to having an equal number of men and women in any national parliament in the world, according to Ann Njogu.

“This is because of a constitutional quota which reserves 24 of the 80 seats in the lower house to women, and guarantees 30 percent of seats in the upper house to women,” she says.

Uganda’s and Tanzania’s constitutions have also embraced AA for women, something that has seen the percentages of women in parliament increase to 24 and 15 respectively against Kenya’s eight percent.

Affirmative action is an essential instrument for moving forward towards full equality, it is also enshrined in Article 4 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), an overarching provision that must be applied to effectively implement all the other Convention provisions.

These strategies have been in place for as long as thirty years in some countries, yet it continues to be one of the most controversial topics in contemporary public discourse.

It is evident that in other countries where AA is implemented, there has been a remarkable representation of the women at all leadership levels.

Because of its significance and its controversial nature, proponents must make the debate over affirmative action their own and develop a global strategy to promote it as a method of achieving real equality.

2007 is an election year for Kenya, with six months to the elections; women have upped their voices in advocating for political space that includes an affirmative action policy starting with the political parties.

On the other hand, it is essential to have stable structures because arguably, without these structures, then Affirmative Action will be just but another policy that is passed but abused.

Gender analysts have argued consistently that the patriarchal structures and institutions within which politicians operate have themselves not altered one bit. In such a situation women are in power without power.

“We often hear people (men and women) argue that the movement has done so much for women. What more do you want? They inquire irritably,” notes Ms Njogu.

But women are not fooled by the high-sounding rhetoric of the movement government. Nor are they beholden to the movement because of the affirmative action policies that they have introduced.

“Those that expect women to be eternally grateful to the state for doing, in a half-hearted fashion, what it is obliged to do should think again. The majority of Ugandan women have learned that the nominal support offered by the state rings hollow to the reality of their suffering and oppression.

Thus, it is not the institutional arrangements of movement versus pluralism, but the patriarchal character of the state; to which for instance the Ugandan women have decided to focus their energies and attention.

For the proponents, believers and supporters of affirmative action, it is all about the principle of equal opportunity.

“When it comes to gender,” says former presidential aspirant Charity Ngilu, “we prefer to keep it at the level of self-development. But in reality, it is about equal opportunity in all spheres of life - gender parity, social justice, family responsibility, access and contribution.”

In Kenya, affirmative action in regard to gender has been centered on the promotion of education and representation in public life for women. There is also the realization that women should be evaluated on the basis that they did not get similar opportunities with men earlier in life.

“This is true especially for rural girls, especially those whose parents did not have the advantage of education. To them, culture is their biggest guiding perspective in life,” adds Ngilu.