Namibia's newly elected government gender equality represenative experiment.

A quiet gender revolution the like of which has been unseen in Southern Africa and perhaps anywhere in the world, is now firmly underway in Namibia.

The ruling party, SWAPO has not only committed to filling half of its seats in parliament with women but also committed to what they call a 'Zebra system' whereby if a Minister is a woman then the Deputy Minister will be a man and vice versa.

Even more ambitiously, the implication is that the roles will be switched in successive elections. What this means is that Namibia's likely appointing a man to the presidency in 2014 is being read by many decision makers as a SWAPO commitment to appoint a woman to the presidency in 2019.

The reason why this is a revolution and not just another election promise, is that SWAPO is already moving to operationalise this commitment to gender equity. SWAPO initially agreed in 2002 to pursue greater gender equality in calling for 50% of leadership positions in parliament, government and state owned enterprises to be occupied by women.

At the most recent SWAPO conference, it was agreed that this policy will be operationalised in the November 2014 elections that SWAPO is almost assured of winning.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201407040952.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia