Additional information about gender quotas

In 2005, the Lesotho Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from an aspirant male ward councillor to declare the reservation of one-third of the local government seats for women as unconstitutional. The councillor argued that the all-women constituencies violated his constitutional right to contest the elections in a constituency of his choice. The Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the High Court’s ruling. It held that the amendment which provided for a temporary and rotating quota of electoral divisions reserved for women was indeed reasonably justifiable in Lesotho’s circumstances. They agreed with what Justice Peete in the High Court described as ‘an undisputable fact … that women in our society have long stood disadvantaged and marginalised socially, economically and even politically.’

Unhappy with this decision, political parties lobbied the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to initiate an amendment to the 2005 law. Thus, the Local Government Elections Act was amended ahead of the 2011 local government elections. The new system revoked the system of reserved seats at the constituency level and introduced the system of 30 per cent seats reserved for women, distributed between parties on a proportional representation basis (‘M’a-Tlali Mapetla 2009).