Mention the 50:50 Campaign to a Malawian voter, politician or activist, and chances are they will voice a firmly held opinion.
Since the 2009 election, this campaign to promote women’s political representation has become an integral part of the Malawian electoral landscape.
Come election time, Malawians are bombarded by radio jingles and meetings explaining why they should consider women candidates in the push for gender equality in elected decision-making position.
Women standing in local and national campaigns distribute 50:50 campaign-branded clothing to voters, and newspapers are filled with discussions on the challenges facing the relatively small number of women struggling to obtain political office.
Critics of the campaign for equal representation of men and women in politics have argued that the initiative does not do enough to counter the many challenges women candidates encounter.
Elections in Malawi are expensive. While the 50:50 campaign has swayed the Malawi Electoral Commission to reduce registration fees for women candidates, the amount of money needed to run for office is still unattainable to most women candidates.
Others have argued that the campaign does not fundamentally address the economic, cultural or institutional obstacles facing women candidates.
Still, advocates of the programme have pointed to the fact that women’s representation in Malawi is steadily rising, from 15 percent in 2004 to 23 percent after the last 2019 election.
Compared to neighbouring countries with similar structural conditions, like Zambia and Botswana, Malawi elects considerably more women and the issue of women’s political representation appears to feature much more prominently on the political agenda.
In an article recently published in the Journal of Politics, we study whether civic educational campaigns, like the 50:50 Campaign, can work to motivate voters to select women candidates.
Despite much cynicism about such campaigns, we find that they can. However, messages matter.
Voters will respond differently to civic education campaigns depending on the reasons given to vote for women.
To study the effectiveness of gender campaigns, we enrolled more than 2 200 randomly selected Malawians across 12 constituencies in a survey experiment. The participants were randomly divided into three groups.
In the first group, participants watched a cartoon commercial produced by the 50:50 Campaign. The commercial featured two arguments: That women are competent leaders and that women often face discrimination when running for office.
In the second group, participants watched a similar commercial, but the message was different. This time, participants again learned that women are competent leaders. But rather than learning about the discrimination women face, we informed participants about the progress women have made in Malawi politics.
In a third control group, we showed participants a non-political, irrelevant commercial.
After watching the commercials, we let participants choose between pairs of parliamentary candidates. We varied the gender of the candidate as well as other crucial attributes like their party affiliation, development priorities, educational background and profession.
The test is designed to measure how much each of the commercials affected the probability of a respondent selecting a woman candidate.
We found that the commercials were effective. Comparing the respondents who received either of the 50:50 Campaign messages to the ones who watched the non-political commercial, respondents who watched the 50:50 message were significantly more likely to pick a woman candidate.
But, crucially, the message matters greatly. Respondents who received the positive message were significantly more likely to pick a woman candidate than those learning about discrimination.
These findings have significant implications for those designing similar campaigns. When voters learn about the discrimination facing women, they may react with a resolve to rectify such injustices.
However, they may also receive this message as confirmation that a vote for a woman candidate is a wasted vote.
If voters believe that others will not vote for a woman, why should they?
Especially in African elections where viability is key and access to future clientelistic rewards may be contingent on supporting a winner.
Instead, our research suggests that gender campaigns should consider a more positive message aimed at increasing voters’ trust in women’s governing abilities, but also in their capacity to win elections.
As Malawians return to the polls in 2025, the 50:50 campaign is yet again gaining momentum as an integral part of the electoral landscape.
Although short-term campaigns will never be enough to eradicate significant inequalities between women and men vying for power, the world has much to learn from the way Malawi’s 50:50 campaign is growing in strength and sophistication.
Seeberg is an associate professor at the Aarhus University.
George Ofosu is an assistant professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Michael Wahman is associate professor at the Michigan State University
