A top official of the Women’s Coalition said on Tuesday that Zimbabwe is still too patriarchal to allow a woman to assume the presidency.

From our top partner RadioVop Zimbabwe

Netsai Mushonga, national director of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ), said the organisation will continue to engage the Parliament-led constitution making process in order to entrench women’s rights in the final document.

“[It’s about] getting a woman or a clique of women who are strategic enough to position themselves to take over as the president of a country; no one will allow us. I think we simply have to take it by force. I think Zimbabwe can have a female president even as early as five to six years from now… [but now] we are still in a patriarchal state,” she said.

Mushonga was responding to a question from a member of the audience during a Food for Thought discussion session held at the US Embassy Public Affairs auditorium in Eastgate.

“We have a national workshop coming in about two weeks time and in that meeting the women are going to decide on the way forward,” said Mushonga. “On whether to vote [for or against the draft constitution], we will really be able to decide when we have the constitution in our hands - the final draft. What we have is the zero draft and uncompleted drafts and we are not able to conclude on those.”

The Global Political Agreement (GPA), which led to the formation of the inclusive government, mandates the writing of a new constitution. The process is led by the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC), with three co-chairpersons from the MDC-T, MDC-M and Zanu (PF).

For the full story, click here.