Paula Fray and Laure Pichegru

JOHANNESBURG, Jun 15 (IPS) – The face of politics is changing in
the southern African country of Malawi. And civil society is
making plans to ensure that it changes even more.

Fresh from a dramatic increase in the number of women
representatives elected into national government last year, the
NGO Gender Coordination Network is already implementing plans for
the Malawi’s “50/50 campaign” to ensure that more women than ever
before sit in local government seats after the November
elections.

Their enthusiasm is inspired by the dramatic increase in the
number of women representatives elected to national government
during the 2009 elections.

A record number of 237 female candidates stood during the May
2009 elections with 42 women making the journey into parliament.
By doing so, Malawi’s female representation increased from 14 to
22 percent.

Emma Kaliya, chair of the NGO Gender Coordination Network
implementing Malawi’s 50/50 campaign, was recently honoured with
a Southern African Trust “Drivers of Change” Award for her role
in the campaign.

Kaliya told IPS that various strategies were being used to
change perceptions about women’s capacity for political
leadership in the national “50/50 campaign – 2009 and
beyond”.

“The first thing we did was to conduct a needs assessment of
the aspiring women candidates. We reviewed both sitting MPs and
those candidates who were aspiring to stand. We collected about
400 names from political parties, our own structure and from
district assemblies,” Kaliya said.

After assessing the needs of the women, the organisation then
arranged capacity building for those candidates: “We began
profiling them through the mass media as well as through
community mobilisation meetings. We would take aspiring women
candidates to community meetings where we would discuss why the
community should support women candidates.”

The organisation assisted the women with campaign materials and
promotional items like T-shirts.  ”We also gave them some funds
for transportation purposes during the campaign. The money was
not much but it helped those who wanted to campaign,” Kaliya said.

The current minister for persons with disabilities and the
elderly, Reen Kachere, is one of the women who benefitted: “The
exercise was a great experience to learn from in order to inform
future elections where gender issues are concerned. I came out
from the experience more knowledgeable and with win-win
strategies for women.”

Malawi developed a national programme in 2008 responding to the
50/50 requirements before the SADC Gender and Development
Protocol was adopted.

The 50/50 campaign is already drawing on a list of candidates
to participate in the November 2010 local government elections.
“We are collecting names, consulting with all parties and going
to district assemblies to identify women candidates. The national
50/50 campaign is for all women, regardless of the party they are
coming from,” Kaliya said.

Because of these campaigns, women are beginning to understand
the need for them to participate in politics if they want to
change the laws that affect them, Kachere said.

MP Anita Kalinde added that women also needed assistance from
NGO’s to be able to get into politics: “Women need to be
assisted right from the primaries and also after, where they
compete with their male colleagues.”

Kaliya added that in the last election the media played a
crucial role in profiling the women candidates assisting them to
reach distant communities they could not travel to with their
messages.

“Radio profiling helped most. All 237 candidates who stood were
given space to talk about their manifestos on local
radio…Women are usually invisible during election campaigns or
there are usually only negative stories (about them) but this
time around we got real support. Every day we were reading or
hearing something about the 50/50 campaign,” Kaliya said.

But there are still challenges that women candidates have to
overcome.  ”If we did not have the SADC (Southern African
Development Community) protocol, it would be very difficult
because Malawi has an equality element in the constitution but it
does not have a quota or affirmative action in the framework. The
electoral systems – not having proportional representation – are
a big barrier because women are competing with men who have a lot
of resources,” Kaliya said. (The SADC Protocol on Gender and
Development commits countries to work towards the goal of having
50 percent women in political and decision-making positions by
2015.)

The commercialisation of the elections is also a challenge.
“Women have to compete with men. Unlike men, they do have a lot
of money. You need resources: you cannot campaign if you don’t
have a vehicle because most places are far apart,” explained
Kalinde.

But female politicians are also getting more support from all
voters, men and women. “People are gradually accepting the
gender dimension. The realisation of the need for women to
participate in the development of their nations through elected
positions is growing and impacting on cultural practices that
marginalised women,” said Kachere.

Kaliya explained that while more women than men voted during
elections, initially women would vote for male candidates – even
if there was a woman standing for election. But the 50/50
campaign has changed that.

“But now, more women are voting for women. You could even see
old, old, women coming to vote and they would say: ‘This time
around we have to vote for women. The government has said it -
even men – so why should we not vote for women?’”

(FIN/2010)

Couresty of http://www.ipsnews.net