The year 2004 is ending the way it started, with southern Africa enjoying unparalleled peace, political stability and security, while poverty reduction remains top of the agenda for the region. Munetsi Madakufamba and Chengetai Madziwa trace highlights of SADC’s year 2004.

Three important national elections in southern Africa during the last quarter of 2004 had at their core the key issues of land redistribution and transition of political leadership.

First off the mark was Botswana which held parliamentary elections on 30 October, won by the incumbent Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) with 44 of the 57 seats in parliament.

The leadership transition issue simmered during the campaign. The question of who will succeed Mogae when he steps down in 2008, was the first post-election issue to be dealt with by party and parliament, with the endorsement of Ian Khama Seretse Khama, the party vice-president, as Vice President of the country.

Khama was unopposed in his bid for election as Member of Parliament for his home area of Serowe, where he is the Bamangwato chief, or kgosi. He is the eldest son of the first President of Botswana, Seretse Khama, and a former commander of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF).

Another issue simmering behind the ballot box was that of the relocation of the Basarwa people from their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to the town of New Xade, which is currently being contested in the courts.

Land was also a hot issue in the peri-urban villages around the capital, Gaborone, which continued to largely support opposition candidates.

Namibian voters went to the polls on 15 and 16 November, and returned the ruling party, the South West Africa Peoples Organization (Swapo), to power 14 years after the end of a protracted armed struggle for independence.

The leadership transition in Namibia is from President Sam Nujoma, who led the country to independence in 1990 and will retire from government in March 2005.

His successor is Hifikepunye Pohamba, the current Minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, who was Swapo's presidential candidate in the recent elections.

Swapo got 75.1 percent of the votes cast, and retained its 55 seats in the 72-member National Assembly. In distant second was Ben Ulenga’s Congress of Democrats (CoD) with 7.3 percent, and 4 seats.

Swapo sees land reform as the key to national development and poverty reduction, ensuring stability, both politically and economically.

Pohamba, in his current portfolio, initiated the acquisition of derelict land for distribution to the majority of landless citizens. He also prepared plans to tackle the broader issue of sharing the limited arable land, largely still in the hands of white farmers.

Another issue in the recent election was the consolidation of recent gains in the social sector, including health, education, and infrastructure development.

In Mozambique, where national elections on 1-2 December will elect a new president and parliament, the incumbent President Joaquim Chissano will stand down after 18 years.

Government commitment to gender targets reflected in cabinet

SADC governments elected into office in 2004 clearly showed their commitment to the 2005 targets in the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development, although the electorate did not always support them on this issue. The most notable case was Botswana, where the general elections on 30 October saw a sharp drop in the number of women elected as Members of Parliament (MPs), down from seven in the previous parliament to four. Only 12 women candidates contested the elections. Although heavily criticized for being the laggard in reaching regional gender targets, trailing all but Mauritius, President Festus Mogae used his prerogative to redeem the situation by appointing women to three of the four nominated seats for non-constituency MPs, thus bringing the number back up to seven. He then took another significant step by appointing four women cabinet ministers out of a total of 14 full ministers. This means that 28.6 percent of the cabinet positions in Botswana are held by women. In addition, Mogae gave arguably the most important cabinet post in the country at the present time to a woman, that of Health, to Professor Shiela Tlou. The presidential and parliamentary elections in Malawi on 20 May saw a considerable increase in women representation. The number of women in parliament rose from 8 to 17 percent. Malawi now has 25 percent of women in cabinet and 33.3 percent female deputy ministers. South Africa’s parliamentary elections on 28 April registered an increase in the number of women in parliament, from 30 to 32.8 percent. There are 12 women out of 28 full cabinet ministers, up from eight in the last government. Women deputy ministers rose to 10 out of 21, up from the previous 8 out of 16. Thus, women now make up 43 percent of the cabinet in South Africa. Elections in Namibia on 15-16 November resulted in a drop in the number of women elected to the National Assembly, the country’s parliament. Namibia now has 18 women in the 72-seat Assembly, 25 percent, compared to 21 women elected (27 percent) in 1999 and nine percent in 1994. Women representation in cabinet stands at 18.5 percent and that will most likely remain the same until the new cabinet is appointed in March 2005. In Mozambique, the representation of women in the outgoing National Assembly was 31.2 percent, while cabinet was at 13.04 percent. This is set to change after the 1-2 December presidential and parliamentary elections. Mozambique has the distinction of being the first country in the SADC region to appoint a woman Prime Minister, Luisa Diogo, who also holds the finance portfolio.