Parties urged to support women

As the 2025 General Elections approach, experts have renewed calls for political parties to take deliberate steps to support women and ensure their increased participation in elections and political leadership.

In separate interviews, political scientist Boniface Dulani, Centre for Multiparty Democracy executive director Ralph Tenthani and Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace national coordinator Boniface Chibwana highlighted the need for women’s political support to start from the political party level.

Their views are coming at a time when there are only 44 women in the 193-member Parliament, representing 22.9 percent; and 11 female Cabinet ministers out of 27, which represents 40.7 percent.

In an interview, Dulani observed that efforts by political parties are not translating on the ground.

“Considering that women make up slightly more than half of the population of this country, it is a tragedy that they are grossly under-represented at party level and in elected positions,” he said.

However, Dulani said the matter cannot be addressed by political parties alone, arguing that voters also need to learn to value women and the contributions they make in society.

“A lot of people in the country still hold the view that women cannot take up leadership positions. Some people pretend that women should be allowed to serve in leadership positions, but deep down their hearts they hold different viewpoints,” he said.

Besides, Dulani faulted the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system used in the country, saying it stands in the way of women succeeding to become political leaders.

He said: “The FPTP system has never been known to be supportive of women in leadership positions.

“The countries that have made strides in promoting women leaders, especially in elected positions, tend to be those that use proportional electoral systems representation.”

The political analyst cited Tanzania, which has made strides by setting quotas despite using the FPTP system, while Uganda and others have set women seats for each district.

In a separate interview, Chibwana observed that political parties are not giving women enough leverage to participate, looking at, among others, the way primary elections and campaigns are conducted.

He recommended a quota system where some constituencies should be left to female candidates only.

Said Chibwana: “We cannot talk about women participation in politics without the political parties as they are the surest way for political mobilisation. If they do not give leverage to women then forget about the 50:50 representation.”

On his part, Tenthani attributed the poor participation to the ill-timing of women-centred interventions.

He said: “You may notice that in between elections, you do not hear much about interventions on women’s participation. We will begin to hear about this in 2024 or 2025.

Principal Secretary for National Unity and Civic Education in the Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture Elizabeth Gomani-Chindebvu said there is a need to encourage discussions within political parties on the Gender Equality Act, which calls for 40:60 representation in all government or leadership positions in Malawi.

The 2022 Sadc Gender and Development Monitor observes that the FPTP electoral system used in Malawi, produces the least desirable results when it comes to women representation in politics.

Despite Malawi having women in majority at the ratio of 51 to 49 according to the 2018 Population and Housing Census, few of them make it into political leadership positions.