UNDERREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN AFRICA’S LEADING DEMOCRACY: A FOCUS ON THE DISMAL NUMBERS OF WOMEN IN THE PARLIAMENT OF MAURITIUS
Mauritius held its legislative elections on 9th November 2019. A pre-election audit revealed that only 8 out of 68 (11.76%) of legislators were women. This did not change much after the November 2019 elections as the major political parties only aligned 12 women candidates out of 60 candidates. Anushka Virahsawmy, Gender Links Mauritius Country Manager, expressed disappointment ‘that the leaders of the main political parties did not align at least one-woman candidate in each of the 20 constituencies of the country for the 2019 elections.’ The outcome of the November 2019 elections was a parliament in which only 20% of Members of Parliament are women. Additionally, only 3 of the 24 ministers are women.
The poor record of representation of women is likely to continue, a worrying fact given that representation of women previously regressed from 18.80% in 2014 to 11.60% in 2017. Mauritius ranks behind its Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) counterparts Tanzania, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, and Angola which have attained more than 30% of women’s representation in the upper and lower houses of Parliament. This is not a good look given that the Economist’s Democracy Index 2018 ranked Mauritius as the only full democracy in Africa ranking it number 1 in Africa and number 17 globally. Why is it that equal representation of women in parliament is not a top priority in Africa’s leading democracy?
A key contributing factor to the dismal number of women legislators is the electoral system of Mauritius. The First Schedule of the Constitution creates 62 Assembly seats (3 in each of the 20 constituencies and 2 in Rodrigues Island). This is characterized as a three-first-past-the-post (TFPTP) system as each of the constituencies votes directly for three members (except for Rodrigues which votes for two). It also creates an additional 8 seats reserved for candidates who have vied for election but have not won their seats to ensure fair and adequate representation of religious or community minorities in what is characterized as a Best Loser System (BLS). The BLS seat is often allocated to the candidate who has acquired the highest number of votes among the unsuccessful candidates. The BLS system does not, however, redress systemic gender inequalities in representation. The current first past the post electoral system in Mauritius has been decried by a former Prime Minister as ‘a major impediment for women while a proportional representation (PR) or a mixed system can be favourable for women.’ In light of this, it is puzzling why Mauritius has not introduced gender quotas at the legislative elections level.
Normatively, Mauritius has legal and human rights obligations to ensure equal representation of women. Mauritius ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on 9 July 1984 and ratified the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) on 16 June 2017. Although it has not yet ratified the SADC Gender Protocol, Mauritius is required to adhere to its commitments under SDG 5.5 to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life.
Article 3 and Article 7 of the CEDAW Convention require States Parties to take all appropriate measures including legislation in the political fields to ensure women enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms on basis of equality with men while Article 4 of the CEDAW Convention provides that temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between men and women shall not be considered discrimination. Mauritius submitted its state report to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in 2018. In its concluding observations on the eighth periodic report issued on 14 November 2018, the Committee noted with particular concern the low levels of participation of women in decision making positions at the national level where only 8 out of 68 women were members of parliament and only 2 of 27 ministers were women. It urged Mauritius to ‘take the steps necessary to adopt temporary special measures including extending the application of the quotas that are in place for local elections to elections conducted at the national level, in order to accelerate the achievement of substantive equality between women and men in all areas of political and public life.’ Additionally, Article 9 of the Maputo Protocol requires state parties to ensure the equal participation of women in the political life of their countries through affirmative action to ensure that women are represented equally at all levels with men in all electoral processes, while Article 3 of the Constitution of Mauritius prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex.
The low representation levels at the national level could be contrasted with the local government level. A multi-dimensional campaign spearheaded by Gender Links documented in a case study titled ‘Mauritius: From Zero to Hero: Women in local government in Mauritius June 2013’ led to an amendment to the Constitution via addition of Article 16 (4) (aa) to the effect that ‘affirmative action prescribing that a minimum number of candidates for election to local authorities to be of a particular sex, with a view to ensuring adequate representation of each sex on a local authority, is defined not to be discrimination.’ Sections 11 (6) and 12 (6) of the Local Government Act 2011 were also amended through the introduction of a quota requiring 30% of members of either sex to be candidates on all party lists resulting in an increase of elected women at the local government level from 6% to 26%.
The successful changes at the local government level illustrate that it is possible to effect change at the national level. Mauritius will have to accordingly adjust its ‘three-first-past-the-post’ system (TFTP) as well as its Best Loser System (BLS). According to proposed amendments to the electoral system issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on 21 September 2018, for instance, at least one-third of the candidates fielded by each party or party alliance should be of the same sex; and at least 1/3 of the candidates on the PR List of each party or party alliance should be of the same sex, and no more than 2 consecutive candidates on the PR list should be of the same sex. These proposed amendments should be fast-tracked by the current parliament. Parliament should also include transformative affirmative action measures to ensure representation of women from religious and community minorities, and other underrepresented groups.
The Global Gender Gap Report 2018 ranked Mauritius at position 109 overall and position 19 in sub-Saharan Africa behind Rwanda, Namibia, South Africa, Burundi, Uganda Zimbabwe, Botswana, Cameroon, Tanzania, Cape Verde, Kenya, the Kingdom of Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Senegal. The low rank of Mauritius in the Global Gender Gap Report is contradictory to its rank as the number 1 democracy in Africa. All the other top countries in the Democracy Index including Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, and Denmark are also ranked at the top of the Gender Gap Report. Mauritius, therefore, needs to do better both for the achievement of substantive equality for its women and for its global image.
The normalisation of gender inequality coupled with the thinking that women’s issues and women’s representation can wait must stop. The Gender Statistics Report released by the Government of Mauritius for Year 2018 clearly shows that exclusion in representation comes at a heavy cost for women. Women are more numerous among the unemployed; the average monthly income tends to be lower for women than men; poor households are more likely to be headed by women, and women are more likely to be victims of sexual violence and sexual exploitation. This can only be remedied by ensuring equal representation for women.
A democracy which makes 50% of its population invisible in parliament is an incomplete democracy. An economy which leaves behind 50% of its citizens cannot attain sustainable development. Since women constitute 50.6% of the electorate in Mauritius, they should equally constitute 50.6% of holders of elective and appointive positions at all levels and branches of government. Mauritius should aspire to reach the levels of Rwanda where women constitute 62% of members of parliament as well as the 50% gender equal cabinets of South Africa and Ethiopia. The November 2019 elections should be the last elections in which gender parity is not attained in Mauritius.
