Sierra Leone MPs race to set gender quotas before elections

Sierra Leone’s parliament is rewriting a bill that Gender Minister Manty Tarawalli presented in October 2021 to set aside 30% of elective and public offices for women. The original version put forward by Tarawalli was not accepted because it required parties to reserve some of the existing constituency seats – and lawmakers disagreed about which ones should be set aside for women. The lawmakers are now discussing a new system for achieving the 30% quota, but there is a narrow timeframe for reaching a consensus before the general elections in June 2023.

Significance – Seats

The decision-makers in the ongoing legislative process for the Gender and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) bill are overwhelmingly male. Only 18 out of 146 lawmakers are women and only four women are in President Maada Bio’s cabinet of 32 people. Those four ministers manage the gender, tourism, marine and social welfare portfolios.

The present challenge before lawmakers is legislating gender quotas in a way that is consistent with the constitution and acceptable to the two major parties – All People’s Congress (APC) and Bio’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). The last attempt in 2012 was not successful because it was not supported with constitutional amendments, and because politicians from both parties rejected all proposals to reserve a portion of existing seats for women instead of creating new ones. These factors are again evident in the ongoing attempt.

Last December, President Bio accepted recommendations made in 2017 for a number of constitutional amendments. The ones relevant to the GEWE bill include requiring parties to increase the proportion of women on the ballot and empowering the electoral commission to redraw constituencies using affirmative action. However, these proposals are not being actively pursued and lawmakers have told us that parliament will try to enact the GEWE bill without a constitutional amendment. But they have not agreed on a proportional formula for redistributing the 146 existing seats.

A more effective approach in other countries on the continent has been to establish special seats for women in the constitution – in addition to regular constituency seats. For example, Uganda’s parliament has one district woman representative for each district and 35% of all MPs are women.

Outlook – Electoral incentives

The current yearly session for Sierra Leone’s parliament will end in May and lawmakers will reconvene in October. Nominations for parliamentary elections will then begin around March 2023. This means the GEWE bill must be passed by the end of May or the legislative process will likely be overtaken by electioneering. There are few electoral incentives to motivate decision-makers to deploy political resources for the proposed legislation as MPs from both parties watch their seats. Even so, the ruling SLPP has a parliamentary majority and can advance in time regardless of opposition pushback.

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Photo credit: Tingey Injury Law Firm

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