Tests ahead for Serame
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Monday June 27, 2022 06:00
Serame, who has built her political foundation through the Women’s Wing, got 370 votes while her opponents Sethu Maano-Gabanakgosi and Gosego Mmolawa got 117 and 13 votes respectively.
The trio was competing for the position of chairperson for the Women’s Wing committee. However, all is not glory for the Finance Minister as she now has to stamp her authority and turn tables around in the party.
Already the number of votes she got show how BDP women trust her. They believe that she could advocate issues better both at the Cabinet level and party central committee.
Her first test will come in the upcoming party National Council, which is the policy making body for the party. That is where the newly elected chairperson is expected to state the position of women or propose some policies that could empower women. Serame took the office at a critical time when women are hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, among other challenges that women have been crying about.
She also takes over at the time when the party has internal fights. Some of the issues that women want to be addressed include an increase in women's representation in both Parliament and councils. In the 2019 general election, a total of 60 female councillors were elected while 26 were specially nominated. Currently, the country has a total of 498 male councillors and at Parliamentary level only three women were elected out of 57 constituencies in the 2019 general election while four were specially elected.
The other policy that women want is for big business companies to be encouraged to subcontract small ones owned by women in their locality. Since Botswana signed the SADC protocol on Gender and Development, the government must ratify and domesticate the protocol and advocate the 50/50 gender equality quota, women argue.
The BDP women also want the party to have a certain percentage of women representation in the party leadership. Serame promised the members that she will ensure that women become stronger in the party and their voice will be heard. She also promised them that the committee will look into policies that women want changed and other existing policies.
“Of course, there are some new policies that we are going to propose after consultation with key stakeholders. Some of the policies will be on the issues of defilement, rape and Gender-Based Violence,” she said.