ASPIRING female parliamentary and local government candidates in Gweru have been urged to start preparing for political participation in 2023 as the number of women holding political office in the city is low.
BY STEPHEN CHADENGA
The call was made by participants at the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) engagement in Gweru last Friday.
Gweru deputy mayor, Cleopas Shiri, said WCoZ should start mobilising women to contest in the 2023 elections saying it was disheartening that out of the 18 councillors in Gweru Urban, only one was female.
“There is need for WCoZ to start mobilising women candidates who are interested in participating in the 2023 elections,” Shiri said.
“It is quite unfortunate that at Gweru City Council we only have one female councillor. Personally, I believe that women can be better political leaders as they are less corrupt compared to men.”
Gweru Urban MP, Brian Dube, echoed similar sentiments and said women should not just be cheerleaders in politics, but should fight for their space.
Dube said if women held political office, it would be easy for them to champion issues affecting them instead of putting men at the forefront to advocate for their rights.
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He said there was need for both men and women to deal with some cultural aspects that hindered women from participating in politics.
“After we have identified the problem of patriarchy, there is need to move together to tackle that retrogressive aspect of our culture,” he said.
WCoZ Midlands vice chairperson, Florence Guzha said it was important that parliamentarians push for legislation that ensured human rights issues were introduced in the education curriculum.
“There is need for human rights issues to be introduced in the education curriculum even at primary school level,” she said.
