Uganda: Pro-women program produces a dissident

Ugandans voted last month for 69 special female members of parliament as part of the country's lauded gender affirmative-action program. But one prominent female politician says the 10-year-old system has failed to deliver legal gains for women. "Politics is generally seen as a game of the leaders, the affluent and the brave. And so it has never been the women's domain," said Zziwa, who belongs to the government party, the National Resistance Movement. Zziwa was first elected to the Ugandan parliament in 1996, along with 38 other women on a special gender ticket, after the government enshrined a system for boosting female representation as part of an ambitious program of affirmative action for women in all spheres of national affairs.