National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete once famously said that South Africa now has a culture of “zero tolerance for no women in politics”.
Despite the drop in support for the ANC, which has been the mainstay of steady increases in women’s political participation since 1994, the May 8 election broke new ground in delivering 44% women MPs , thanks to smaller parties finally pulling their weight.
The Democratic Alliance , Inkatha Freedom Party, Freedom Front Plus and smaller parties will together bring 11 additional women, and three smaller parties lose one woman each. This brings the net gain to 17, or a total of 175 women out of the 400-seat National Assembly, a meteoric rise from the pre-democracy Parliament in which women constituted just 2.7% of the total.None of the main political parties achieved gender parity in the top five lists.
The DA has long opposed quotas for women in politics. Its former leader, Helen Zille, sparked a heated debate and an equality Court challenge in the last elections for appointing an all-male Cabinet. Although De Lille is the comeback kid in the 2019 elections , the DA’s failure to embrace up-and-coming black female leaders such as Lindiwe Mazibuko is one of the factors being cited for its lacklustre performance in 2019.
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