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Mugabe pulling apron strings
24/03/2005 20:34 - (SA)
JOhannesburg - Zimbabwe's ageing President Robert Mugabe presented a startling sight as he launched his party's election campaign with a woman's scarf tied around his head.
The campaign for a parliamentary election that critics have deplored as skewed by repressive laws and intimidation has seen a flurry of measures aimed at uplifting women in Zimbabwe's fiercely patriarchal society.
With little to show for nearly 25 years in power, Mugabe's critics claim his women's outreach is just a ploy to burnish his image.
"He is a traditionalist with very little time for women," said John Makumbe, a University of Zimbabwe political scientist.
"His volte face now is really a gimmick aimed at capturing women's votes in the face of a persistent opposition challenge that is threatening his government."
Mugabe does need to get out to chase the vote. His party won just 62 of parliament's 120 elected seats in 2000, despite what independent observers called widespread violence and rigging.
Not enough food
Earlier this month, Mugabe was forced to acknowledge that the former regional breadbasket is no longer producing enough food to feed itself, although he blamed four years of crippling drought for the crisis.
"He has no real achievements around the land issue, so now he has to change his tune," Makumbe said in a telephone interview from the United States, where he is a guest lecturer at Michigan State University.
Mugabe said he wore the green, black, yellow and red scarf, which belongs to the women's league of his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriot Front, to remind supporters at last month's rally that "if you ignore women, you are gone".
Women make up 51% of Zimbabwe's 11.6 million people, but hold just 13 of Parliament's 120 elected seats and three of the 30 appointed by Mugabe.
Women say they also face discrimination in applying for jobs, getting access to land and owning property.
In December, Mugabe appointed Joyce Mujuru as Zanu-PF and the country's first woman vice-president.
His party has also fielded 30 female candidates in the March 31 election in what it calls a serious bid to bring the country in line with the Southern African Development Community's goal of filling 30% of leadership posts with women.
However, secpticism is rife.
Excluded her main rival
Mujuru's appointment was seen less as an attempt to advance women than a way of excluding her main rival, parliament speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has made clear his ambition to succeed the 81-year-old Mugabe.
"It was an opportunistic political appointment dressed up as a progressive move by a party which has never demonstrated the political will to ensure women are afforded their equal status in society," said Lucia Matibenga, chairwoman of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change's women's assembly.
There have been few other high-powered appointments.
- AP
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