Why Tanzania political parties have few women in leadership, candidate lists

Tanzania, in keeping with global political trends, reserves 30 percent of seats in parliament for women. These so-called special seats were introduced with multiparty politics in 1992, in response to the low numbers of women elected to positions of power.

There were only eight elected female parliamentarians after the first multiparty elections in 1995. Ten years later, 17 women were elected to parliament, representing 7 percent of legislative seats. Fast forward to the 2020 general elections: women make up 37.4 percent of parliament.

However, only 27 women (10.2 percent) were elected directly from the 264 constituencies.

Special seats are credited for increasing women’s representation. This has enabled the passing of a couple of “gender sensitive” laws.

However, the special seats system is not the magic bullet for achieving gender equality in political representation across the board.

Read here the full article published by The East African

Image by The East African

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