On Women Political Reservations in LDCs

For political reservation in favor of women in developing countries to be successful and its effectiveness to be far-reaching, it is important that the process be gradual and some conditions be met before its implementation. These conditions should include elevation of level of education of women in the country, establishment of strong women networks and availability of an elaborate “exit strategy” or termination of the program. In short, women empowerment should be a bottom-up approach that aims at having women eventually qualify to vie for seats and solicit votes in a normal democratic process.

While in justifying political reservations, some scholars have argued that such an approach is necessary to address historical reasons that exacerbated gender disparity in politics (Tinker, Irene, 2004), I think it would be problematic to blindly use affirmative action to fill influential political positions because potential ineptness of women in power which could result in them being swayed about by their men counterparts. Neema Kudva (2003) for instance points to the fact that due to illiteracy on the part of women among other reasons, women in political positions ended up working as surrogates for their male relatives or other influential local special interests in India. I feel that a given level of education for women in politics would make them not only independent in decision-making but also more knowledgeable policy formulation.

A policy that seeks to politically empower women should also look at other factors that might contribute to women’s participation in politics. It is important to increase grass-root women networks that would solidify social and political capital and at the same time ease the process of women mobilization in favor of women. A recent poll conducted in Kenya show that only 9 percent of women population trust a woman to be in a position of leadership (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, 2010). Such a low regard of women leaders by women themselves could be attributed to a myriad of factors including cultural attitudes, illiteracy and lack of “an outstanding woman model” in leadership. With grass-root networks, however, women could be informed about political engagement. And instead of recruiting individual women, it would be easier to recruit blocks of women to support women candidates. In managing such networks, women could also acquire necessary leadership experience that could help them in political positions.

Political reservation in itself short-circuits the normal process of democracy, arguable for a good reason, to achieve gender parity in decision-making. However, I am of the view that it should only be used as a short-term tool. To create an incentive for the government and women to synergistically have full and normal democratic representation of women in political position it is important for the government to create an exit strategy or set a deadline after which women should be able vie elections like their men counterparts. Such an indicator that would mark  the need to end political reservation would be a challenging one to delineate. But it might entail looking at number of women elected to legislative bodies at a given point without special party assistance, number of women in the labor force, women literacy level among others.