Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sports and Culture (MYSC), Kitso Kemoeng, says the minimal representation of women in the political space concerns him.
Hence, he advised women to consider running for political office in numbers in the 2024 General Election. Speaking at the Launch of the Chairperson of the National Gender Commission in Gaborone recently, Kemoeng revealed that there are only three women who were elected as Members of Parliament while the rest were specially elected. He implored the media to be constructive when reporting on aspiring women politicians. “I urge the media to capitalise on reporting positive stories of women empowerment and resilience,” he said. “Noting that we will be going for the general election this year, may I urge you the media to report constructively about women especially those who are running for political office at various levels. As for women, I urge you to support each other more especially those running for political offices,” he said.
Kemoeng emphasised that the media coverage of gender and development issues was important as it could influence socio-political and socio-cultural responses to the challenges of gender inequality. He added that the media played an important role in informing the public about challenges such as gender injustice including gender-based violence (GBV) and how this affects the society. For his part, the MYSC Minister Tumiso Rakgare said that even though women have always been fewer than men in Parliament, all of them had played a major role in the development of the country by doing exceptionally well.
He added that it was time to break the trend and bring more women into the political arena. Meanwhile, the newly appointed Chairperson of the National Gender Commission, Joy Phumaphi, said in the 2019 General Election, out of the 210 candidates fielded by all the political parties only 12 were women. She said six of them ended up coming out victorious. She said even though the current Parliament has seven women, four were specially elected. Comparing women’s performance and participation in the 1999 and 2019 General Election, she said they have regressed in this particular area. “Unfortunately the situation when it comes to councillors is not much different. It is a little better but not much different,” Phumaphi noted.
