Margaret Dongo, who made history in the 1990s by breaking away from Zanu (PF) to form the Zimbabwe United Democrat party, said: “The formation of a women’s party is the only option left for women who have constantly been denied their rights 32 years after independence.”
The former freedom fighter, famed for describing Zanu (PF) male members as “Mugabe’s wives” when she was a parliamentarian, said women should come together and form a broad-based party to increase female leadership in the country. “I urge NGOs focusing on women’s issues, policy makers, political parties and academics to come together and form a women’s party,” she said. “Women pay too much attention to party politics forgetting that their common goal is to push the women’s agenda.”
She added that if women worked together across the political divide, a lot could be achieved as the motto would be: Working for women, rather than working for a political party.
“Political parties have divided women and made them forget their common goal as women. The truth is that they have the same needs and should speak with one voice,” she said.
Dongo said government could only be freed from corruption and dictatorship if the majority of those in power were women.
“Women are mothers and their lifestyle has little to do with dictatorship, they always try to bring harmony within the family. There really isn’t much difference between running a family and running a government.
The only difference is that government is a big institution. You find that if a woman is disciplined at home, that extends wherever she goes,” she said. She said there was need for women to come up with solutions to be in leadership since they are the majority of the country’s population.
“What fails us to take over power when we are the majority? It means there is a problem somewhere,” said Dongo.
She said even though the party would be formed by women, it would be national and address issues regardless of gender.
Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe Chairperson, Virginia Muwanigwa, applauded the initiative saying it was an opportunity to liberate women. “If we come together as women, we can achieve more. It will be a good initiative but the starting point is to support women who are already in power,” said Muwanigwa.
But human rights activist Jestina Mukoko said it was more important to create a conducive environment for women to engage in politics within the existing political parties rather than forming a new party.
“We don’t live in an environment where women are quarantined, we actually live with men and we need a conducive environment created within those existing parties to increase female participation. We have had too many promises of women being in decision-making positions, but women do not participate because of political violence,” she said.
Political analyst, Alex Magaisa said, “This will be the first women’s initiative. I cannot comment on something that does not exist. We will wait for the formation of the party and see how it goes.”
Post published in: News
I worked for Margaret’s historic 1995 campaign for Harare South and, later, as her personal assistant and speechwriter. This article grossly misrepresents Margaret’s work and achievements, especially where it refers to her party as the “Zimbabwe United Democratic party”. The party Margaret formed together with Priscilla Misihairabwi, Kempton Makamure, Wonder Maisiri, and others, was called the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (ZUD). ZUD was preceded by the Movement for Independent Electoral Candidates (MIEC), a progressive collective Margaret and other activists formed soon after her victory to support individuals challenging the dictator on the ballot as independents.