Pacenet, NGO-GCN grieve over women fall in primaries

The Pan-African Civic Educators (Pacenet) and the NGO-GCN have expressed shock at the fall of female aspirants in

the ongoing party primary elections where over 90 percent of the victors are men.

The two organisations have observed that the female candidates’ poor showing is raising questions on the commitment of political parties towards the country’s 50-50 campaign.

Pacenet, which is championing the 50 percent women representation campaign in Thyolo, Mulanje, Machinga, Dedza and Chiradzulu with funding from the Department for International Development (DfID) through National Democratic Institute (NDI), said reports from the parties that have,

so far, conducted their primaries indicate that most female aspirants have failed thereby giving way to men to continue controlling the political scene.

Speaking at a consultative meeting in Chiradzulu on Monday, the network director Steven Duwa said the development shatters Malawi’s hopes to achieve a 50 percent women representation during the 2014 Tripartite Elections.

He further said the poor performance of women in the primaries spells doom for them as they would have difficulties to mobilise resources should they decide to stand as independents.

The Pacenet boss, who attributed the fall of women in primaries to lack of resources, appealed to parties to devise mechanisms that would propel women to succeed even in the absence of handouts.

“Most female aspirants are resource-challenged, which means they cannot run a successful campaign to win them an election. This is why Pacenet would have wanted to see them sailing through in the primaries so that they can ride on the back of their parties,” said Duwa.

He cautioned delegates not to vote based on handouts, proximity of the candidates, tribe, region and religion, arguing this trend is detrimental to intraparty democracy.

Duwa also said the 50-50 concept does not excuse female candidates from public scrutiny; hence, the need to critique manifestos of all candidates regardless of their gender.

Non-Governmental Organisation Gender Coordination Network (NGO-GCN) national coordinator Emma Kaliya attributed the fall of women in primaries to the commercialisation of the elections rites.

Kaliya indicated that only four female parliamentary aspirants have managed to win in the primaries in the North.

“We are yet to get comprehensive reports for the Centre and South. We have our people who are monitoring the situation on the ground and they have told us that the primaries have been highly commercialised such that most women are failing to successfully compete against their male counterparts because of lack of handouts,” she said in an interview on Tuesday.