Moses Matenga
HARARE – With less than two weeks to go for Zimbabwe to vote in a make or break election, the campaign trail has not been friendly for female candidates and those involved in the electoral processes. In fact most have become thick-skinned as they have endlessly received brickbats for venturing into a terrain where angels fear to tread.
While women carry the weight ahead of elections, constituting more than 54% of registered voters, they have been subjected to harsh treatment that have seen some of them being trolled and lampooned. Interestingly less than a dozen out of the 22 presidential hopefuls vying for the top office are women.
Harare West Member of Parliament Jessie Majome told Business Times this week that ever since she decided to stand as an independent candidate, in protest of the undemocratic manner of the internal party processes in the MDC Alliance, she has been called unpalatable words.
“You wouldn’t want to hear what they are calling me. It is unpalatable. Every day of my life if you check on my phone my Facebook account and all my social media, I am called names. You can’t print them in your newspaper,” she said.
“I am seeing a lot of bitterness, acrimony and so forth. I am being called names. Some of the things are unprintable and unrepeatable. They refer to my intimate anatomy, what is that?”
Majome, regarded as one of the most hardworking female MPs in the outgoing Parliament, is facing MDC Alliance candidate Joana Mamombe who herself has been partly attacked as a woman who could not stand on her own without the aid of a sexual relationship with a high-profile politician.
Mamombe was attacked and said to be MDC Alliance presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa’s girlfriend, an accusation she flatly refused.
MDC – T presidential candidate Thokozani Khupe was called a prostitute by a handful of MDC Alliance supporters protesting against her choice to challenge Chamisa for the party top post following the demise of Morgan Tsvangirai in February.
A group of MDC Alliance youths who thronged the Supreme Court a few months ago taunted her calling her a harlot.
She fell out of favour all because she had chosen to challenge Chamisa for the party top post.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chairperson Priscilla Chigumba has also not spared in the growing group of women to be called names.
Former Sunday Mail editor Edmund Kudzai accused Chigumba of being in a sexual relationship with one of the contestants in the July 30 election, saying that therefore she was not fit to remain in office for the bias.
Chigumba however denied the accusations.
Chamisa condemned those calling Chigumba names but was relentless in calling her arrogant as shown by the manner she was discharging her duties as Zec chair.
“Those are personal matters but what make people say that is they don’t understand why some things are being done. Those issues are likely to come up, I don’t encourage them,” Chamisa said.
Several female politicians including aspiring Mt Pleasant Parliamentary constituency lawmaker Fadzai Mahere, Harare Central candidate Linda Masarira among many others have been called all sorts of names as the attack on women politicians persist.
Blogger Pettina Gappah came out guns blazing against the attack of women in politics accusing some opposition activists of being perverts but were quick to condemn women.
“You have a problem with any woman who raises her head above the parapet. I have been keeping track and have counted an incredible number of women who have been called “hure” (prostitute) in public or on social media accounts of the MDC leadership and their fellow travelling analysts,” she complained bitterly on her blog.
Media scholar Susan Makore said women have the numbers in politics but were facing problems as contestants, probably because Zimbabwe’s political ecosystem is largely patriarchal.
“They have the numbers to register to vote but no one is willing to get into politics. The question is why so? It means there is something in the DNA of political parties. What it is I don’t know,” she said.
Women rights activist Primrose Chauke said: “That is the reason women shun politics. It is because of such abuse. Who would want to be subjected to such abuse.”
In 2013, then Zanu PF Vice President Joice Mujuru was hounded out of the ruling party amid name calling and chants that included the liberation war fighter being referred to as “a witch from Dotito.”
At one point, the now Presidential aspirant was forced to plead with former President Robert Mugabe, insinuating that she was under attack because she was a woman and abused by Zanu PF men because her husband Solomon Mujuru was no more to protect her.
Mujuru died in a mysterious inferno at his Ruzambo farm in 2011.
Despite the threats posed by several factors in the political dynamics against women, many including Majome however said they were ready to soldier on and ensure she is victorious, against all odds.
