EDUCATION-ZIMBABWE:Getting Harder To Keep Children In School

Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Jan 26 (IPS) - Alois Mufundisi, a media professional, earns 200 million Zimbabwean dollars, about 50 U.S. dollars on the thriving parallel market.

On paper this amount appears huge, but in real terms it is just enough to buy essential foodstuffs for half a month. He is barely able to keep his three children in school. Seven years ago he could manage without any problem. Now he has to do private jobs to supplement his income.

"Sometimes I can’t sleep thinking about where I can get my next dollar. It really pains me to think that I may not be able to pay for basic things such as my children’s education," said Mufundisi.

With hyperinflation at 8000 percent according to the Central Statistical Office (CSO), keeping children in school has become difficult in Zimbabwe. Educational standards have been on a free fall since the beginning of an unprecedented economic collapse that started in 2000, with often-violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms in the former regional breadbasket.

"During our time education was free," said Mufundisi. "My parents could send me and my siblings to boarding schools on my father’s civil servant salary, but now I am in danger of not being able to do the same for my children."

Schools opened in Zimbabwe on Jan. 15 and teachers in Harare have reported growing absenteeism. To make matters worse the country is facing acute shortages of food, hard currency and fuel in the economic meltdown that began in 2000.

Once Africa’s best, Zimbabwe’s educational system is now in crisis. Tens of thousands of teachers in state schools are constantly on a ‘go-slow’ action demanding a wage hike. There is an exodus of teachers to better paying jobs outside the country. The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) -- one of two teachers’ representative bodies -- estimates that more than 15,000 teachers left the teaching profession in 2006.

Those who stay behind spend most of the time moonlighting. Even head- teachers at private schools -- where quality of education is better -- are demanding bribes of up to 200 South African rands or 50 U.S. dollars in hard currency to enroll children.

"I had to pay money in foreign currency to secure a place for my daughter at a private school in Harare," Mufundisi told IPS.

A teacher at a rural Zimbabwe school who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity said, "I am quitting and going to South Africa. I have sold so many text books from my department library to supplement my meagre salary, I have to make a move before I am caught."

President Robert Mugabe’s investment in education after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 has generally been seen as the highlight of his increasingly autocratic 27-year rule, although he inherited most of the infrastructure from the former white colonial government.

PTUZ estimates that between four and five children share a textbook. There are often four children to one desk in the poorly equipped classrooms.

Students are fainting in class from hunger. Girls are missing school during the menstrual cycle because they cannot afford to buy sanitary pads. School dropout rates have shot up. Children are quitting school to supplement family incomes as vendors, commuter omnibus conductors, even sex workers.

A price-freeze ordered by the government in June last year left store shelves bare of most basic commodities, but the freeze was eased in phases to restore the viability of producers and businesses. However, supplies of goods have remained erratic.

Some Zimbabwean residential schools -- hit by severe food shortages -- were reported to be insisting that students bring their own supplies, according to Zimbabwean private media. The PTUZ said several boarding schools had cut short the last term of 2007 after running out of food.

The union secretary general Raymond Majongwe told IPS, "Our reports indicate that many schools will not open. These are clearly signs of the virtual collapse of the education system."

Higher education is also in crisis. The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) -- a representative body -- released a report this week stating that the country has the world’s highest college dropout rate outside a war zone.

The report further states that more than 31.5 percent of students were forced out of school due to the exorbitant fees being charged in these institutions.

"The government only funds about 3 percent of the students in tertiary institutions. 80 percent are funded by their relatives," stated the report.

"Zimbabwe is facing a sharp decline in public expenditure on higher education, deteriorating teaching conditions, decaying educational facilities and infrastructure, perpetual student unrest, erosion of university autonomy, a shortage of experienced and well trained teaching staff, lack of academic freedoms, and an increasing rate of unemployment among the college graduates," the report damningly concludes.

(END/2008)


Send your comments to the editor

NCA chairperson Lovemore Madhuku speaking to IPS

We Want to Prepare Voters For the Election and the Post-Election Scenario’

Lovemore Madhuku speaking with IPS

HARARE, Jan 16 (IPS) - "If you run an inherently unfair election it will lead to political unrest in a post- election scenario," Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) told IPS.

"We are seeking to explain how a flawed electoral system like the one we have in Zimbabwe can easily be manipulated, resulting in an election losing value," Madhuku explained.

The NCA -- a grouping of Zimbabwean citizens and civic organisations including: labour movements, students and youth, women, churches, business groups, human rights organisations and political parties -- was formed here in 1997 to campaign for constitutional reform. Zimbabwe is still using an outdated 1979 Lancaster House Constitution.

NCA received worldwide acclaim following a successful "NO" Vote campaign during the February 2000 referendum on a new constitution. Since then, the NCA has been at loggerheads with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s government.

The organisation is now organising what it calls a "special type" of voter education campaign in rural areas ahead of presidential, parliamentary and local government elections to be held in March.

IPS Zimbabwe Correspondent Tonderai Kwidini spoke to Madhuku about the new campaign:

Lovemore Madhuku: It is a special type of voter education. We are basically educating people on why it is necessary for them to go and vote in an election, explaining in detail why it is also important to vote in an election, which is free and fair.

We are seeking to explain how a flawed electoral system like the one we have in Zimbabwe can easily be manipulated resulting in an election losing value.

Essentially we are telling them that an election is not just joining a queue and casting a ballot but it is about voting with confidence without any fear that the election might be rigged. We are emphasising a new people driven and democratic election.

IPS: You to call it a "special type" of voter education?

LM: It is not technical in nature but simply seeks to arm the voter with the capacity to challenge a voting anomaly. If people go to vote expecting change, if it does not come, they must be satisfied with the outcome and understand fully why it did not come.

We want to cultivate a post election environment where Zimbabwean citizens will understand why a certain result will have come out. We want to prepare voters for an election and the post-election scenario. The elections will not have any meaning if they are held in the current hostile environment.

IPS: Zimbabwe is going to have elections in March. Are there any signs that the people you are reaching will have reason not to vote?

LM: Absolutely. There is still lack of freedom in the country. The media is still muzzled. Newspapers -- which were closed -- are yet to be opened, and everything is still being done as a secret and yet elections are a public event. Freedom of association and assembly is still not there and Mugabe is still using the all-powerful state apparatus to crush any descent including the all powerful police and army forces.

IPS: In the aftermath of the post-Kenyan election violence what can Zimbabwe learn as it goes into an election in March?

LM: The biggest lesson is that an independent electoral body, which is transparent, should run the election and that there should be a very transparent and quick way of solving electoral disputes.

If you run an inherently unfair election it will lead to political unrest in a post election scenario. The other lesson is that elections are not a simple issue that any person can just play around with, manipulating results, and runaway with it.

IPS: When did you start this campaign and whom are you specifically targeting?

LM: We started in November 2007 and intensified it around Christmas time through Christmas parties because we wanted to take advantage of the increased numbers of people who were in the rural areas at that time for the festive holiday. We are not targeting any specific group of people -- ours is a broad-based campaign reaching out to all Zimbabweans of different walks of life.

We are running this programme on a village level. So far we have been to Manicaland Province [eastern Zimbabwe] and Mashonaland East and Central [central Zimbabwe].

IPS: Zimbabweans -- as witnessed by voter apathy experienced in recent elections -- seem to have lost interest in the country’s electoral process. How are you cultivating voter interest at this time of hopelessness?

LM: It is this hopelessness that we are trying to take away from them and cultivate interest by preparing them for the post-election scenario where probably the change that they might be hoping for will not come. We want them to still be able to pick up the pieces after the elections and ask ‘what can we do.’ We will come back and emphasise the need for a democratic and people centred constitution.

IPS: What has been the response to the campaign?

LM: It has surprisingly been overwhelming -- although many people have been asking why they should be participating in an election whose electoral frameworks are not fair.

We have been telling them that it is important for them to vote, but we emphasise what sort of environment they should be voting in. As NCA we have been advocating that it is useless to participate in an election until the country gets a new democratic constitution --but we cannot stop those who want to participate in elections.

IPS: During the last presidential elections Zimbabweans were expectant and went to vote eagerly expecting that their vote will finally bring an end to Mugabe’s rule. But, that did not happen and opposition groups claimed electoral fraud, do you share the same view?

LM: The problem is that the opposition gospel has been that Mugabe must go. They have not been preparing people for a scenario, which will happen if Mugabe does not go.

IPS: Your organisation has been at odds with the government?

LM: There have been interferences from the police and state security agents. We are still waiting to hear from owners of the homesteads that we visited if they received any reprisals for hosting our programmes.

IPS: Are you working with any other organisations, which are also involved in voter education campaigns, such as: Artists for Democracy in Zimbabwe Trust (ADZT), Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network (ZESN), and Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC)?

LM: Not necessarily. These partners are dealing with technical aspects of elections, such as voter registration, while we are into civic education of the old type.

IPS: Do you think there is enough electoral information being channelled to the people of Zimbabwe with just under two months to go before the election?

LM: There is clearly not enough. Everything is being done in secret. All we hear is that the delimitation commission is parcelling out constituency boundaries -- how that is being done only God knows. We do not even know how many voters have been registered so far, it all remains Mugabe and his party’s secret.

(END/2008)


Send your comments to the editor

POLITICS-ZIMBABWE:Mbeki Attempting to Jumpstart Talks

Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Jan 15 (IPS) - The Southern African Development Community (SADC)-brokered talks to end the political stalemate between the ruling ZANU PF party and the opposition Movement Democratic Change (MDC) are hanging by the thread.

The aim of the SADC talks is to ensure that Zimbabwe can hold free and fair elections next month.

Negotiators from the two parties have shuttled more than a dozen times back-and-forth between Harare and Pretoria in a bid to break the impasse.

Tendai Biti, a member of the opposition’s negotiating team, told IPS that the two parties met 20 times for negotiations.

Talks resumed Jan. 13 in Pretoria under the direct supervision South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is now under pressure to conclude the negotiations before elections.

In March 2007, Mbeki was appointed by SADC leaders to lead efforts to end the country’s political and economic crisis by facilitating dialogue between ZANU PF -- the party led by President Robert Mugabe -- and the MDC party led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

"The dialogue is resuming. Our negotiators are in South Africa right now after President Thabo Mbeki stepped in to break the deadlock," said Patrick Chinamasa, minister of justice, legal and parliamentary affairs, in the Zimbabwe state media.

Zimbabwe is facing wide spread food, fuel, electricity, and water shortages. According to the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, inflation is pegged at 15,000 percent -- a figure the World Bank says is abnormal for a country not at war. The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Zimbabwe says educational standards have been declining in the country, which was once famous for offering some of the best education on the continent.

The SADC-brokered talks have reached a deadlock over demands by the MDC that a transitional constitution drafted by the two negotiating parties take effect before elections are held.

"Mbeki has called the negotiating teams to try and break the deadlock," Chinamasa said, but, "the MDC is still insisting on a transitional constitution as well as the shifting of the election date."

The ruling party which is represented by two cabinet ministers, Patrick Chinamasa and Nicholas Goche -- of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Public Service and Social Welfare respectively -- has rejected the MDC proposal, saying elections will be held in March as called for in the present constitution.

Zimbabwe’s constitution says the current six-year presidential term ends on Mar. 31, 2008 and calls for elections to be held before that date. Zimbabwe is still using an outdated 1979 Lancaster House Constitution.

ZANU PF prefers a situation where elections will be held under the current constitution after which the winning party will lead the process to come up with a new constitution.

This scenario would require elections to be held before the expiry of the current presidential term unless a constitutional amendment to the contrary is passed through the parliament.

The current deadlock has forced Mbeki to put aside his own problems back home and concentrate on seeing through the dialogue he started 10 months ago. Sydney Mfumandi, South Africa’s Minister of Local Government, has led the talks till now.

Tsvangirai accuses the ruling party of preferring to accede to cosmetic reforms of the country’s repressive laws than implement a new transitional constitution. He stresses that ZANU PF is simply paying lip service to the whole negotiating process.

"Mugabe wants a false election," Tsvangirai told IPS, "We are deadlocked on key issues that should enable us to cross the bridge into a new era."

Tsvangirai accuses the ruling party of backtracking on key promises made during South African-brokered talks last year. The SADC brokered talks were structured in a give and take manner in which the MDC acceded to major amendments of the country’s constitution. In return, it was agreed that some repressive laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), and the Broadcasting Act were to be amended including some of the inputs from the opposition.

More importantly, the constitutional amendments that were made give Mugabe power to anoint a successor in the event that he wins an election and chooses not to see through his term of office. In the event that he dies, parliament will have the responsibility to elect an interim president until the next election date.

Tsvangirai says the ruling party is reneging on its initial promises of putting together a new transitional constitution before elections.

"They are shifting goal posts," Tsvangirai stressed. "This is unacceptable, they want to force an election in March and still rig the outcome through a flawed process."

The opposition party has indicated that it will call for Kenyan style protests if Mugabe insists on holding a flawed election in March.

But, "Elections can not be postponed," Lovemore Madhuku, a constitutional law expert, told IPS, "it will need a special amendment to the constitution for this to be possible."

The MDC says that the pace at which the transitional constitution was to be implemented should determine the election date. It argues that the transitional constitution will help in setting up a sound electoral management system, codes for good governance, and a human rights regimen between now and the election date. This they say would minimise chances of electoral fraud.

Critical issues the opposition wants addressed before elections include allowing the diaspora to vote, counting of votes and announcement of results at polling stations, and the role of SADC and other international observers in the elections.

The government has indicated it would only allow "friendly" countries or organisations to observe the elections.

Mugabe -- who is currently enjoying his annual holiday in Asia -- insists that the elections will take place in March "without fail."

(END/2008)


Send your comments to the editor

ZIMBABWE: A "Can Do" Approach to Greater Political Involvement of Women

Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Dec 30 (IPS) - With general elections expected to take place in Zimbabwe this coming March, a campaign is underway to increase women's political participation in the Southern African country.

The initiative is a revitalised version of the ཮-50' campaign, which began last year but failed to gain momentum. Now, activists are campaigning under the slogan 'Women can do it!'. The effort is being spearheaded by the Women's Trust, a non-governmental organisation based in the capital of Harare, and is receiving support from the Norwegian government.

"The campaign provides a structure and action to mobilise Zimbabwean women to get involved in the electoral process and constitutional debates as candidates and voters," Luta Shaba, executive director of the Women's Trust, told IPS.

"We want to thrash out issues that are stopping us as women from getting into power and making transformative changes to the lives of women."

The campaign brings together women from political parties, civil society organisations, the private sector and educational institutions throughout the country. In a declaration issued after an August conference for the initiative, held in Harare, supporters of the campaign made several demands, including that 50 percent of candidates for political parties be women -- and for the introduction of proportional representation.

At present, candidates with the most votes, by whatever margin, are elected to the presidency and parliament. Proportional representation would see candidates allocated seats according to their parties' share of the vote, a system that is often viewed as more effective for getting higher numbers of women into decision-making posts.

The declaration also recommends that half of party funding provided by government be reserved for women candidates.

Women constitute 52 percent of the population in Zimbabwe, according to the Central Statistical Office's most recent census, conducted in 2005.

However, they hold only 19 percent of cabinet posts, 17 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament and 36.6 percent in the senate, according to figures from the Ministry of Women's Affairs, Gender and Community Development. They also hold 12 percent of seats in urban councils, and 28 percent of those in rural councils.

The mismatch between the number of women in Zimbabwe and their presence in politics is something for which women must shoulder part of the blame, says Women's Affairs Minister Oppah Muchinguri.

"The 'PHD' or 'Pull Her Down' syndrome has worked against us women. I am worried by the extent to which we have internalised our own oppression and take this out by oppressing other women. We are jealous and do not want to see other women succeed," she told another conference held in Harare under the auspices of 'Women can do it', this time in October.

"We tend to vote for men because our lived experiences have conditioned us to be subordinates," added Muchinguri, who heads up the Women's League of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.

The minister also pointed a finger at the way in which women's traditional responsibilities tend to rule out other pursuits: "The patriarchal nature of our society relegates women to the domestic sphere...The roles of women as mothers and carers make it impossible for them to be effective in full time politics."

In addition, "Politics cost money and women often do not have resources to fund their election campaigns because women are economically dependent and lack access to basic resources."

Certain activists further note that even if women are not confined to the home, perceptions that they belong there may undermine their chances of winning political office.

Zimbabwe has taken steps to help women break free of these constraints. A National Gender Policy that has been in place since 2004 aims -- in part -- to have 52 percent of decision-making posts occupied by women.

The country is a signatory to the Southern African Development Community's (SADC) 1997 Declaration on Gender and Development, which set a goal of having 30 percent of decision-making posts in member states in female hands by 2005 (although few countries in SADC reached this target, it has since been adjusted to having women occupy 50 percent of decision-making posts).

Zimbabwe is also party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which requires signatories to root out discrimination against women in political and public life.

But, warns Alice Kwaramba, assistant programme officer for human rights and democracy building at the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, a foundation based in Johannesburg, this all amounts to more bark than bite.

"The ceremonial act of placing signatures on paper has remained ceremonial and has not been accompanied by actions that translate into tangible transformation of the status of women," she told IPS.

A question that begs asking is whether activists will be able to muster broad support for greater women's participation in politics at a time when Zimbabweans are preoccupied by the severe political and economic problems afflicting their country.

Hyper-inflation and widespread poverty have put basic commodities beyond the reach of many, and the United Nations World Food Programme estimates that about four million people in the country will require food aid next year.

Various legislative changes that hold out the promise of easing controls on opposition activity and the media are working their way through parliament, this after years of government crackdowns on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), rights activists and journalists -- and a number of elections marred by irregularities. SADC-mediated talks between government and the MDC are also underway.

However, as rights watchdog Amnesty International observed in a Dec. 14 statement, "government continues to beat and torture human rights defenders and political opponents, despite the ongoing mediation process being facilitated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC)."

Notes MDC member of parliament Trudy Stevenson: "On top of these economic and social challenges, female politicians are usually the targets of campaign violence. They cannot afford to hire bodyguards like their male counterparts. Violence meted against female candidates in elections is real."

"I partly blame it on the patriarchal society in which we are living where women are ascribed certain roles, of which political participation is not one. I think as an opposition MP I fall between two stools as a woman...neither commanding the respect of my colleagues or those from the opposite side," she told IPS.

"Female MPs are very few but our politics is common because we all suffer from violence meted (out to) us by competing male politicians, and at times it can be very lonely being a female MP in Zimbabwe." (END/2007)


Send your comments to the editor

EDUCATION-ZIMBABWE:Getting Harder To Keep Children In School

Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Jan 26 (IPS) - Alois Mufundisi, a media professional, earns 200 million Zimbabwean dollars, about 50 U.S. dollars on the thriving parallel market.

On paper this amount appears huge, but in real terms it is just enough to buy essential foodstuffs for half a month. He is barely able to keep his three children in school. Seven years ago he could manage without any problem. Now he has to do private jobs to supplement his income.

"Sometimes I can’t sleep thinking about where I can get my next dollar. It really pains me to think that I may not be able to pay for basic things such as my children’s education," said Mufundisi.

With hyperinflation at 8000 percent according to the Central Statistical Office (CSO), keeping children in school has become difficult in Zimbabwe. Educational standards have been on a free fall since the beginning of an unprecedented economic collapse that started in 2000, with often-violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms in the former regional breadbasket.

"During our time education was free," said Mufundisi. "My parents could send me and my siblings to boarding schools on my father’s civil servant salary, but now I am in danger of not being able to do the same for my children."

Schools opened in Zimbabwe on Jan. 15 and teachers in Harare have reported growing absenteeism. To make matters worse the country is facing acute shortages of food, hard currency and fuel in the economic meltdown that began in 2000.

Once Africa’s best, Zimbabwe’s educational system is now in crisis. Tens of thousands of teachers in state schools are constantly on a ‘go-slow’ action demanding a wage hike. There is an exodus of teachers to better paying jobs outside the country. The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) -- one of two teachers’ representative bodies -- estimates that more than 15,000 teachers left the teaching profession in 2006.

Those who stay behind spend most of the time moonlighting. Even head- teachers at private schools -- where quality of education is better -- are demanding bribes of up to 200 South African rands or 50 U.S. dollars in hard currency to enroll children.

"I had to pay money in foreign currency to secure a place for my daughter at a private school in Harare," Mufundisi told IPS.

A teacher at a rural Zimbabwe school who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity said, "I am quitting and going to South Africa. I have sold so many text books from my department library to supplement my meagre salary, I have to make a move before I am caught."

President Robert Mugabe’s investment in education after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 has generally been seen as the highlight of his increasingly autocratic 27-year rule, although he inherited most of the infrastructure from the former white colonial government.

PTUZ estimates that between four and five children share a textbook. There are often four children to one desk in the poorly equipped classrooms.

Students are fainting in class from hunger. Girls are missing school during the menstrual cycle because they cannot afford to buy sanitary pads. School dropout rates have shot up. Children are quitting school to supplement family incomes as vendors, commuter omnibus conductors, even sex workers.

A price-freeze ordered by the government in June last year left store shelves bare of most basic commodities, but the freeze was eased in phases to restore the viability of producers and businesses. However, supplies of goods have remained erratic.

Some Zimbabwean residential schools -- hit by severe food shortages -- were reported to be insisting that students bring their own supplies, according to Zimbabwean private media. The PTUZ said several boarding schools had cut short the last term of 2007 after running out of food.

The union secretary general Raymond Majongwe told IPS, "Our reports indicate that many schools will not open. These are clearly signs of the virtual collapse of the education system."

Higher education is also in crisis. The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) -- a representative body -- released a report this week stating that the country has the world’s highest college dropout rate outside a war zone.

The report further states that more than 31.5 percent of students were forced out of school due to the exorbitant fees being charged in these institutions.

"The government only funds about 3 percent of the students in tertiary institutions. 80 percent are funded by their relatives," stated the report.

"Zimbabwe is facing a sharp decline in public expenditure on higher education, deteriorating teaching conditions, decaying educational facilities and infrastructure, perpetual student unrest, erosion of university autonomy, a shortage of experienced and well trained teaching staff, lack of academic freedoms, and an increasing rate of unemployment among the college graduates," the report damningly concludes.

(END/2008)

Kenya Elections story- UPDATE/POLITICS-KENYA: Mediation to Address Election Crisis Planned

NAIROBI and JOHANNESBURG, Jan 3 (IPS) - Opposition officials have postponed a gathering that was supposed to take place Thursday in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, this after police clashed with demonstrators as they tried to make their way to Uhuru Park for the rally.

The head of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), Raila Odinga, had appealed for a million people to be present at the gathering, which forms part of a days-long campaign to have results from the Dec. 27 presidential poll, which saw head of state Mwai Kibaki returned to office, overturned. The event has apparently been rescheduled for next Tuesday.

Reports of violence also emerged from the coastal city of Mombasa.

The chairman of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, had been expected in Kenya Thursday to help bring an end to post-election strife that has claimed upwards of 300 lives across the East African country, according to figures from the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the International Federation for Human Rights.

There appeared to be some uncertainty about his visit at the time of issuing this update, although the ODM has said it is willing to accept him as a mediator. However, former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu was said to have arrived in Nairobi to mediate in the crisis; plans have reportedly been made for him to hold talks with Odinga, but not with the president.

Appeals for calm have been made by Britain and the United States, among others, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown raising the possibility of an administration that includes both Odinga and Kibaki, sworn in for his second term on Sunday.

Between 70,000 and 100,000 people are said to have been displaced in the violence, which erupted over the weekend as concerns grew about the validity of the vote count for the presidential ballot. With opinion polls having given Odinga the edge over Kibaki during the campaign, the ODM head and his supporters were quick to allege electoral fraud concerning the president's re-election.

Concerns about the poll were also expressed by the European Union observer mission, which earlier this week issued a damning assessment of certain aspects of the elections. A Jan. 1 statement from the mission quotes Chief Observer Alexander Graf Lambsdorff as saying that "...problems started after the close of polls. EU observers were turned away from tallying centres, particularly in Central province, without being given results and were denied access to the tallying room at Electoral Commission (ECK) headquarters on several occasions."

Results from Central province were to prove decisive.

While Odinga was the clear frontrunner in the initial stages of the vote count, his lead eventually narrowed, amidst delays -- notably in the announcement of results from Central province, a Kibaki stronghold. The final count gave the president victory by approximately 200,000 votes, sparking fears that results had been held back until officials knew by how much they should be inflated to ensure victory for Kibaki. The Odinga camp was, in turn, accused of vote rigging.

The Kenya Election Domestic Observation Forum also pronounced itself dissatisfied with the vote counting, and in a further twist, Electoral Commission of Kenya head Samuel Kivuitu told a local paper that he did not know whether Kibaki had won or not.

Widespread looting and arson have accompanied the death and displacement, which are being attributed to ethnic divides as much as political rivalries. Kibaki is part of the Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's largest ethnic group, long dominant in business and politics to the ire of other tribes. Odinga is a member of the Luo group.

In perhaps the most shocking incident of the post-election period, as many as 50 people were killed Tuesday in the western town of Eldoret when the church that they had taken refuge in was set alight. Those in the church were said to be Kikuyus; western Kenya constitutes Odinga's support base.

The political rhetoric has been as heated as the confrontations in Kenya's streets and slums, with Kibaki and Odinga accusing each other of being responsible for genocide.

Matters have not been improved, say observers, by repressive treatment of protesters by police, or the imposition of a ban on live broadcasts -- something that serves to encourage "a dangerous flurry of rumors and speculations," noted Tom Rhodes, Africa programme co-ordinator of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

"On a more positive note," says the EU statement, "the parliamentary election broadly appears to have commanded greater confidence amongst Kenyan people." (Dec. 27 also saw legislative and local elections take place in Kenya.)

The parliamentary ballot gave the ODM about 100 seats of the 210 contested, against almost 40 for Kibaki's Party of National Unity (exact figures are not available on the ECK website), raising the spectre of a president hamstrung at every turn by hostile legislators. Kibaki's invitation for parliament to meet him at State House this week was apparently rebuffed by opposition legislators.

Most of the president's cabinet members were wiped from the electoral landscape on Dec. 27. Vice president Moodi Awori (ousted from a seat in the Western province that he had held for over 25 years), foreign affairs minister Raphael Tuju, information minister Mutahi Kagwe, health minister Paul Sang and lands minister Kivutha Kibwana were amongst the casualties.

Another clear statement of the electorate’s desire to make a break from the past was the defeat of three sons of former president Daniel arap Moi. Gideon Moi lost the Baringo Central Constituency in the Rift Valley, a seat the Moi family had held for the last 50 years on the platform of the Kenya African National Union. The other two, Jonathan Toroitich and Raymond Moi, were also allied with Kibaki, and duly lost to ODM candidates.

For many observers, it seemed clear that voters attached little significance to Kibaki’s achievements on the economic front. "It is a generational change. People have given a verdict against the longstanding, old political clique," said Andrew Mwangi, a civil servant.

This may have been because growth has largely failed to translate into better living standards for a good many Kenyans -- in part because of corruption that Kibaki failed to quell, despite his promises to the contrary during the last polls, in 2002. Roads and the railway network did not improve either, while the largely inefficient bureaucratic machinery remained well entrenched.

But, the winds of change will blow to scant effect in parliament while the crisis over the presidency continues to loom.

When President Kenneth Kuanda lost the 1991 election in Zambia, a bewildered Mobutu Sese Seko exclaimed: "How could you lose an election you had organised yourself?"

Hopes are that Kenya is not living down to the expectations expressed by the erstwhile Zairean ruler. (END/2008)

ZIMBABWE: A "Can Do" Approach to Greater Political Involvement of Women

By Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Dec 30 (IPS) - With general elections expected to take place in Zimbabwe this coming March, a campaign is underway to increase women's political participation in the Southern African country.

The initiative is a revitalised version of the ཮-50' campaign, which began last year but failed to gain momentum. Now, activists are campaigning under the slogan 'Women can do it!'. The effort is being spearheaded by the Women's Trust, a non-governmental organisation based in the capital of Harare, and is receiving support from the Norwegian government.

"The campaign provides a structure and action to mobilise Zimbabwean women to get involved in the electoral process and constitutional debates as candidates and voters," Luta Shaba, executive director of the Women's Trust, told IPS.

"We want to thrash out issues that are stopping us as women from getting into power and making transformative changes to the lives of women."

The campaign brings together women from political parties, civil society organisations, the private sector and educational institutions throughout the country. In a declaration issued after an August conference for the initiative, held in Harare, supporters of the campaign made several demands, including that 50 percent of candidates for political parties be women -- and for the introduction of proportional representation.

At present, candidates with the most votes, by whatever margin, are elected to the presidency and parliament. Proportional representation would see candidates allocated seats according to their parties' share of the vote, a system that is often viewed as more effective for getting higher numbers of women into decision-making posts.

The declaration also recommends that half of party funding provided by government be reserved for women candidates.

Women constitute 52 percent of the population in Zimbabwe, according to the Central Statistical Office's most recent census, conducted in 2005.

However, they hold only 19 percent of cabinet posts, 17 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament and 36.6 percent in the senate, according to figures from the Ministry of Women's Affairs, Gender and Community Development. They also hold 12 percent of seats in urban councils, and 28 percent of those in rural councils.

The mismatch between the number of women in Zimbabwe and their presence in politics is something for which women must shoulder part of the blame, says Women's Affairs Minister Oppah Muchinguri.

"The 'PHD' or 'Pull Her Down' syndrome has worked against us women. I am worried by the extent to which we have internalised our own oppression and take this out by oppressing other women. We are jealous and do not want to see other women succeed," she told another conference held in Harare under the auspices of 'Women can do it', this time in October.

"We tend to vote for men because our lived experiences have conditioned us to be subordinates," added Muchinguri, who heads up the Women's League of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front.

The minister also pointed a finger at the way in which women's traditional responsibilities tend to rule out other pursuits: "The patriarchal nature of our society relegates women to the domestic sphere...The roles of women as mothers and carers make it impossible for them to be effective in full time politics."

In addition, "Politics cost money and women often do not have resources to fund their election campaigns because women are economically dependent and lack access to basic resources."

Certain activists further note that even if women are not confined to the home, perceptions that they belong there may undermine their chances of winning political office.

Zimbabwe has taken steps to help women break free of these constraints. A National Gender Policy that has been in place since 2004 aims -- in part -- to have 52 percent of decision-making posts occupied by women.

The country is a signatory to the Southern African Development Community's (SADC) 1997 Declaration on Gender and Development, which set a goal of having 30 percent of decision-making posts in member states in female hands by 2005 (although few countries in SADC reached this target, it has since been adjusted to having women occupy 50 percent of decision-making posts).

Zimbabwe is also party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which requires signatories to root out discrimination against women in political and public life.

But, warns Alice Kwaramba, assistant programme officer for human rights and democracy building at the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, a foundation based in Johannesburg, this all amounts to more bark than bite.

"The ceremonial act of placing signatures on paper has remained ceremonial and has not been accompanied by actions that translate into tangible transformation of the status of women," she told IPS.

A question that begs asking is whether activists will be able to muster broad support for greater women's participation in politics at a time when Zimbabweans are preoccupied by the severe political and economic problems afflicting their country.

Hyper-inflation and widespread poverty have put basic commodities beyond the reach of many, and the United Nations World Food Programme estimates that about four million people in the country will require food aid next year.

Various legislative changes that hold out the promise of easing controls on opposition activity and the media are working their way through parliament, this after years of government crackdowns on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), rights activists and journalists -- and a number of elections marred by irregularities. SADC-mediated talks between government and the MDC are also underway.

However, as rights watchdog Amnesty International observed in a Dec. 14 statement, "government continues to beat and torture human rights defenders and political opponents, despite the ongoing mediation process being facilitated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC)."

Notes MDC member of parliament Trudy Stevenson: "On top of these economic and social challenges, female politicians are usually the targets of campaign violence. They cannot afford to hire bodyguards like their male counterparts. Violence meted against female candidates in elections is real."

"I partly blame it on the patriarchal society in which we are living where women are ascribed certain roles, of which political participation is not one. I think as an opposition MP I fall between two stools as a woman...neither commanding the respect of my colleagues or those from the opposite side," she told IPS.

"Female MPs are very few but our politics is common because we all suffer from violence meted (out to) us by competing male politicians, and at times it can be very lonely being a female MP in Zimbabwe." (END/2007)


Send your comments to the editor

ZIMBABWE: Good Intentions Plus Poor Implementation Equals Dry Taps

By Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Dec 30 (IPS) - A 20-litre bucket in hand, Abigail Shonhiwa ponders the stretch ahead in her journey to the next watering hole, a distance of about seven kilometres. Her suburb has been facing recurrent water shortages since 2000, in part because it is built on a plateau in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

The ageing treatment plant at the Morton Jeffrey Water Works, located about 20 kilometres outside of the city, has difficulty building up enough pressure to push the water through to the tap at Shonhiwa’s house. The British colonial administration put the water works infrastructure in place several decades ago, and the current government has not adequately maintained or replaced the equipment.

Shonhiwa can say little about the Water Act of 1998, which the government introduced in an effort to ensure that all its citizens would have sufficient access to water.

"I know nothing about that. All I know is that ZINWA is now in charge of water affairs," Shonhiwa told IPS with an expression of resignation as she set out on the remainder of her journey.

ZINWA, the Zimbabwe National Water Authority, a parastatal organisation, is tasked with managing the country’s water affairs. It was set up in terms of the Zimbabwe National Water Authority Act at the same time as the Water Act of 1998 was passed by parliament.

The two acts together replaced an earlier Water Act of 1976, because government wanted to provide the people of Zimbabwe with more equitable access to water.

At the Zambezi Basinwide Stakeholders Forum held in the resort town of Victoria Falls in northern Zimbabwe last month, the country’s minister of water resources and infrastructural development, Munacho Mutezo, said that the previous legislation had made water provision and management an impossible task -- and that broader consultation was needed in this regard.

In terms of the two acts of 1998, ZINWA would take over the running of water affairs and infrastructure at all levels of government, including those of municipal authorities. The parastatal was to assume responsibility for the construction and maintenance of dams, for all systems required to ensure the distribution of water and for billing operations.

"The main purpose of the creation of ZINWA was to make water available to all the people throughout the country, as previously some people in the rural areas were still using water from unprotected sources like rivers. Now there are boreholes and dams almost everywhere," Mutezo told delegates at the Victoria Falls conference.

However, certain water experts have a different viewpoint on the way water resources are being managed in Zimbabwe.

In a 2006 paper titled 'Water sector reforms in Zimbabwe', Hodson Makurira and Menard Mugumo acknowledged that "Although Zimbabwe has the legal framework for integrated water management, the situation on the ground does not reflect the policy."

The process of taking over the various water authorities has been slow and fraught with controversy.

ZINWA was supposed to ensure that water was affordable and accessible even to the poorest communities in the country; yet where it has taken over, rates have increased ten-fold, taps run dry, and sewage and water pumps burst regularly -- while waterborne diseases have become part of urban life. To date, the agency has not built a single dam, while three major dams supplying water in the southern region of the country were decommissioned after drying up.

ZINWA has met with grim resistance from residents of Harare since it assumed control of water management in the capital -- also Zimbabwe's largest city. The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) says there is no difference between the Water Acts of 1927 and 1976 and that of 1998.

"This talk about introducing pieces of legislation aimed at improving water availability is bar talk. The coming in of these new laws has actually worsened the problem of water shortages, particularly the vesting of all water powers in the hands of ZINWA. In all fairness, the coming in of ZINWA heralded a new era -- that of water shortages," said Jabusile Shumba, CHRA senior programmes and advocacy officer.

The distressing experiences in Harare have caused residents of other towns and cities to oppose ZINWA’s bids to take over water management in their respective areas.

For example in Gwanda, about 125 kilometres south of Bulawayo, in southern Zimbabwe, Mayor Thandeko Zinti Mnkandla says his municipality will not hand over its sewer reticulation system to ZINWA because of that organisation’s reputation for incompetence.

Some commentators speculate that the national government has insisted on turning over water management in urban areas to a bungling parastatal because the cities and towns tend to support the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

"There is no hope for the future. We don’t really know what’s happening at ZINWA. Maybe the parent ministry knows, but the past two years have been appalling," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told IPS.

ZINWA often attempts to defend itself by saying that it does not have enough foreign currency to purchase essential water equipment.

A ZINWA official who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity explained, "We have been bashed left, right and centre. People blame us for the water shortages, but we have only been operational for less than two years. There is no money to finance major projects such as the rehabilitation of water works, which we inherited in obsolete state."

The past few years have seen a deepening crisis in Zimbabwe, where government has come under fire for economic mismanagement and widespread human rights abuse. (END/2007)


Send your comments to the editor

Thank God to be alive

Many thanks to the almighty that i am still alive and gets to see the sun shine again in 2008. After all the hardships that Zimbabweans continue to face at the hands of a callous regime.