Khupe vows to fight for gender equality in her new Job

By Tichaona Sibanda
23 March 2006

The newly elected Vice-President of the MDC, Thokozani Khupe said the absence of other women in the top leadership of the party should not be construed as bias.

Out of six female candidates who contested for top posts at the just ended MDC congress in Harare, Khupe was the only woman to land a top post in the hiearchy of the party.

She said her main task in the new job was to ensure that both genders end up on an equal footing. The MDC has a constitution that allocates a third of the posts in the national council and executive to women members of the party.

But to achieve that Khupe said she would have to try and change the mindset of women who should realise that it is important to vote for fellow women.

‘We are lucky in the MDC because the leader of the party Morgan Tsvangirai is gender sensitive. He will ensure that many women are going to occupy influential posts during elections for national executive members on Saturday,’ she said.

Speaking from her base in Bulawayo Khupe said it is difficult to talk about gender equality when both genders are not at the same level.

‘So my duty at the present moment or what I intend to do is make sure that both genders are on an equal footing, after that, then we can talk about gender equality,’ she said.

She said the exercise to bring in more women to the top has to start at political party level, where she’s witnessed a trend of women voting for men rather than fellow females.

‘In MDC we have plans to fill up Parliament with women, to elevate women to other important decision making bodies, but this can only work with a hundred percent backing from other women,’ said Khupe.