• Constitution states each county should have a woman representative.
• It will take time before the National Assembly naturally passes the two-thirds gender rule.
The Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee in Parliament last week proposed that political parties should have to nominate one-third women as candidates for elections. Great idea!
Now the committee in another bill is proposing that the 47 county woman representatives should be scrapped (see P2). Bad idea!
The logic might be that you don't need extra woman MPs if you have one-third female candidates. But that assumes that one-third of women will be elected.
Voters may continue to favour male candidates. Political parties may abuse the system and put forward women only in constituencies where they are weak.
Affirmative action is still needed for the foreseeable future to increase the number of women in Parliament, even if political parties are forced to nominate more women as candidates. The Constitution is clear about the two-thirds gender rule.
Some MPs are arguing that special woman MPs were only mandated for a 20-year period after the 2010 Constitution. But the Constitution does not refer to such a time limit. This was just a suggestion by some politicians.
The 47 county woman reps in the National Assembly should be retained.
Quote of the day: "It is much easier to show compassion to animals. They are never wicked."
Haile Selassie
The emperor signed the first Ethiopian constitution on July 16, 1931.