Despite calls to elect more women into leadership positions, only one woman from Likoma has been voted chairperson in 37 councils, including four cities.
The count r y ‘s lone female council chairperson is Chizumulu North Ward councillor Justina Phiri (Democratic Progressive Party).
From those elections, just 15 women were picked as vice-chairpersons, while no female was chosen for mayor or deputy mayor in any of the country’s cities and municipalities.
The decision has not amused institutions such as ActionAid, the 50-50 Campaign team and Women’s Legal Resource Centre (Wolrec).
In a written response, Action Aid Malawi executive director Yandura Chipeta said the outcome is disappointing and rolls back gains in the women’s political agenda.
With only 58 women elected as councillors out of 516 wards where elections took place, Chipeta said the situation resulted in entrenching the spirit of patriarchy in the elections of mayors and council chairpersons.
“This outcome demonstrates that Malawi is still struggling to move from rhetoric to action when it comes to gender equality in politics, leadership and decision-making positions,” Chipeta said.
She further said lessons from the 2025 elections show that Malawi needs to embrace affirmative action, including reserving quotas for women seats as is the case in other countries such as Tanzania, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
“That must be complemented by programmes that focus on transformation of structural and cultural barriers that disadvantage women from pursuing political leadership roles,” Chipeta added.
The 50-50 Campaign chairperson Lingalireni Mihowa described the development as retrogressive, as in the previous tenure women produced a deputy mayor, who later became mayor in Lilongwe and a deputy mayor in Zomba.
“We need to continuously work with political parties because sometimes it ‘s the parties that agree which candidates to put forward. So we have to continue to work on transforming political parties so that they embrace women’s leadership,” she said.
Wolrec executive director Maggie Kathewera Banda said the results from the councils are a reflection of the challenges that women in politics have been experiencing.
“Malawi needs to put in place a law on quotas. Somehow it seems like as a nation we are afraid to take bold and radical decisions like those,” she said.
50-50 Campaign male champion George Jobe also supported the need for coming up with quotas.
D u r i n g a m e e t i n g convened by ActionAid r e c e n t l y o n w o m e n empowerment in Salima, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Welfare Mary Navicha hinted at lobbying for reforms within political parties to create a conducive environment for women to attain more decision-making positions.
Yesterday, speaking in Lilongwe during the launch of Oxfam and Partners Post- Election Initiatives towards gender t rans f o rmat i ve and inclusive democracy with the Women’s Caucus of Parliament, Navicha called on stakeholders to immediately start working towards 2030.
Mulanje West Member of Parliament Patricia Kaliati commended Oxfam and other partners for supporting female legislators in the last election cycle.
Oxfam gender justice programme and pol i cy manager Sarah Kambilinya said increasing the number of MPs from 40 in the previous cohort to 48 currently is a good step, but more needs to be done.
