Boost for Malawian women - Malawi - Elections '99 - Sustainable Democracy

BLANTYRE, 21 June 1999
The fight for increased gender sensitivity in Malawi’s
decision-making processes has received a major boost in the June 15 poll with 16 of the 193 parliamentary seats won by women.

According to official results announced Friday by Justice James Kalaile, Chairman of the Malawi Electoral Commission, the figure represents a
three-percentage points increase in the number of women parliamentarians from the 1994 election. Sixty-two women contested this year’s election,
against 606 men.

Women lobby groups however dismissed the result as a failure on the part of women, who despite constituting more than 50 percent of the electorate,
still vote for male candidates.

"We should all accept to have failed. We should all feel guilty of having women trodden on," said Emmie Chanika, Executive Director of Civil Liberties
Committee.

Chanika’s comments were echoed by Reen Kachere, Executive Director of the Association of Progressive, who expressed disappointment that the 25 percent
set by women’s lobby groups had not been met.

Gender activists launched an intense pre-election lobby urging the electorate to vote more women to parliament.

At 8 percent, Malawi has one of the lowest percentage representation of women in parliament in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which set a 30 percent target of female representation in decision-making positions by 2005.

In Malawi, women's involvement in power-sharing and decision-making at all levels is limited, with the traditional structures leaning heavily toward male dominance.

Women however played a significant role in the transition to multiparty democracy and turned up in large numbers during the 1994 presidential and
parliamentary elections. But few contested the polls.

Women are coming from a history of political abuse under the one-party system operated by the late President-For-Life Hastings Kamuzu Banda.

Rather than involve them in mainstream decision-making, Banda's regime used women in praise singing, campaigning and dancing publicly for the president and engaging them in the work of paramilitary groups such as the disbanded
Malawi Young Pioneer.
(SARDC)