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D emo c r a c y : R u l e o f l aw, r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a n d p a r t i c i p a t i o n negative reporting on women that stand for political posts. These laws help to enhance women’s active involvement in political leadership. Women’s organisations like UWONET, in a bid to enhance women’s participation, drafted the 2006 women’s manifesto while some other organisations, for instance FIDA, supported women financially to participate as candidates (UWONET report, 2007). Securing female parliamentary representation in Uganda Female representation in Uganda’s parliament is to a large extent secured though the separate women’s elections. In the current ninth parliament, most of the women are elected through separate women’s elections. The Ugandan way of including women, by introducing reserved seats, is very much an ‘add-on’ procedure as women are elected in addition to the constituency MPs who are elected on a ‘firstpast the-post’ basis. Each of the districts in Uganda elects one district woman representative to parliament. Each district consists of an average of three to four counties. Statistics since 1986, when the NRM government came to power, indicate a steady rise in female political participation in elective offices. Elections for women can be traced back to the establishment of the National Resistance Council (NRC) in 1989. Affirmative action measures for women were introduced in this election and 34 women were elected to ‘women’s seats’. Some women were also elected on the ‘regular’ seats and in total women constituted 17 per cent of the NRC with 41 seats (Tripp, 2000: 39, 71). During the sixth parliament (1996–2001) there were 39 districts in Uganda and, accordingly, 39 women were elected as female district MPs. When the seventh parliament (2001–06) was elected, Uganda had introduced 17 new districts, securing at least 56 seats in parliament for women. The eighth parliament of Uganda comprised of 217 constituency representatives, ten Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) representatives, five representatives of the youth, five representatives of persons with disabilities, five representatives of workers and 13 ex-officio members. Out of the total number of members of parliament, 99 were women – 79 of these were district women representatives, 14 directly elected women parliamentarians and six special interest representatives. This constituted 31 per cent of female representation in the eighth parliament. Uganda’s ninth parliament comprises 375 members with 129 (34.4 per cent) women MPs – an increase from the 31 per cent in the eighth parliament, but still lower than the parity target set by the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. However, the numbers of women MPs who competed with men fell from 16 in 2006 to 11 in 2011; and of the 129 women MPs, 112 represent districts as a result of affirmative action. This shows that women have not yet broken through the barriers of competing with men for a political position. While many women had hoped that this seat would be a training ground for more women to enter parliament, those that gain the seat find it safer to keep it than to compete with a man even after two or three terms. A few other women have joined parliament as representatives of special interest groups such as persons with disabilities (25 per cent), the army (20 per cent) and youth (25 per cent). Women’s strong numerical presence in parliament has had some positive effects in Uganda. First, it has led to one of the most gender sensitive constitutions in the world in the sense that it contains articles directly affecting women in particular. Second, together with civil society, women in parliament have been important in passing legislation important for women. Women’s caucus and a gender sensitive constitution After 1986, with the introduction of the ‘movement’ political system, for the first time in modern history women in Uganda have been well represented in decision-making bodies and they have been able to stand together on issues important for women, leading to articles in the constitution that specifically take women’s rights into account. These articles act as a strong foundation for fighting for legislation important for women. In 1994, the Constituent Assembly (CA) was elected to draft a new constitution. In the CA, the women elected formed a women’s caucus to better enhance the interests of women. Out of 286 delegates, 52 (18 per cent) were women – and most of them participated in the women’s caucus. The women’s caucus turned out to be effective and the women were able to talk with one voice and raise common objectives, turning the women’s caucus into the most coherent body (Tripp, 2000: 77; Women’s Landmarks: 15). The women’s caucus did not take a stand on the debate on the country’s political system since it was non-partisan. It did not establish a relationship with the multi-party caucus called the National Caucus for Democracy (Goetz, 2002: 560). The support the CA delegates got from the women’s movement was important, if not decisive, in the process of fighting for the provisions in the constitution concerning the status and participation of women in Uganda (Oloka- Onyango, 2000: 11; Tamale, 1999: 117). During the CA, a gender information centre was organised by the National Association of Women’s Organisations in Uganda. The information centre soon turned out to be an important meeting place for the electorate and delegates as well as NGOs focusing on women (Women’s Landmarks, 19). The caucus, in co-operation with the women’s movement, was effective in implementing Article 31 (on the family), Article 32 (on affirmative action) and Article 33 (on the rights of women) of the constitution. In contrast to the two previous constitutions, the 1962 independence constitution and the 1967 constitution, the 1995 constitution has articles which specifically take women’s rights into account. Despite the fact that the Ugandan constitution acts as a fundamental basis for discussing issues important for women, it needs to be backed Commonwealth Governance Handbook 2013/14 34


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