POLITICS-MALAWI: President to fight for the Political Inclusion of Women

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Brian Ligomeka

BLANTYRE, Aug 29 2003 (IPS) - Malawian President Bakili Muluzi has urged legislators in his Southern African nation to amend the country’s Constitution to allow him to appoint more women Parliamentarians in a bid to increase women’s participation in politics and other decision making organs.

Speaking to journalists recently President Muluzi said that gender equality is a fundamental human right to be realised through equitable representation of women and men in decision making structures as well as equal access to resources.

Muluzi said that although he has vigorously encouraged women to take an active role in politics the Malawi Parliament would remain a male-dominated National Assembly unless the Constitution empowered him to nominate a certain portion of the legislature.

He said it was high time legislators considered giving women an opportunity to equally participate in the country’s politics as Parliamentarians.

Muluzi said unlike other SADC member states, the country’s laws have no provision to allow the President to nominate some members of Parliament, which he said would enable him to add more women into the National Assembly. "Countries like Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe give powers to the President to nominate 20 percent of women into Parliament. We should have done so here," Muluzi said.

He accused the legislators of frustrating his initiative to empower women in Malawi. "For a long time I have asked to be given powers to appoint MPs but I have always be denied. I would appoint as many women Parliamentarians as possible because women have been dominated by their menfolk for so long," he said.

The Malawian leader hinted that unless there was a constitutional amendment providing for the President to nominate some representatives of Parliament, women should brace themselves for a tough ride against their male counterparts in the political race.

Southern Africa leaders committed themselves to having at least 30 percent women in political and decision making structures at national levels within Southern African Development Community (SADC) structures by the year 2005. The leaders, at a summit held in Malawi’s commercial city of Blantyre in 1997, also made a commitment to repeal and reform all laws, amend Constitutions, change social practices which subject women to discrimination, and enact empowering gender sensitive laws.

Muluzi bemoans: "It is really difficult to achieve the 30 per cent women representation in Parliament without amending our Constitution. We have to revisit the Constitution. We should change the Constitution, otherwise women would still be under-represented and we would fail our pledge of achieving a quota of 30 percent of women in Parliament by 2005."

Currently there are only 17 women MPs in Malawi out of 177 Parliamentarians.

Malawian women activists support Muluzi’s view. Malawi Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Loveness Gondwe, says Parliament should seriously contemplate enacting a law that would empower the Head of State – after consultations with women and gender activists – to nominate some women to Parliament.

"If women fail to make it to Parliament, the best that we can indeed do is to allow our President to nominate women to Parliament. This should, however, be done after consultations with political parties, women activists and other stakeholders," says Gondwe, herself, an MP from Mzimba in northern Malawi.

She said that although women constitute 52 percent of Malawi’s 11 million population, in a country where culture dictates that women should be leaders it is not easy for women to make it to Parliament in elections.

Reen Kachere, Executive Director of the Association of Progressive Women (APW) welcomed President Muluzi’s proposal saying Parliamentarians should divorce chauvinism and support Muluzi and the women in the country.

"If Parliament can support Muluzi’s proposal, obviously Malawi would achieve the much needed initial 30 per cent quota.Women would, on their own, fight hard to win more seats during elections," said Kachere, whose organisation is planning to lobby MPs during the next seating of Parliament to introduce a bill that would allow the President to nominate women.

While Muluzi is pressing Malawians legislators to enact a law to allow him nominate female Parliamentarians, the secretariate of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is in the process of developing a gender policy for the region, with a view to promoting parity in a region where women are still a long way to asserting their rights.

Once developed, the framework will enable member states to assess whether their national gender policy frameworks are in line with regional priorities, said SADC gender programme head Christine Warioba. "The policy will also provide guidelines and targets for the achievement of gender equality," Warioba told the recently ended SADC heads of state and government summit in Tanzania.

The summit also received a progress report from member states and examined whether governments have delivered promises made in 1997 when a declaration on gender and development was adopted.

As pointed out earlier, in the 1997 declaration, governments committed themselves to making sure that women occupy at least 30 percent of all political and decision-making structures in the region by 2005.

However, while some countries have moved quickly in that direction, some lag behind and are yet to honour their pledges.

SADC executive secretary, Dr Prega Ramsamy, told the summit that countries seen to be doing well concerning women MPs were not necessarily fairing well in promoting women into other levels of decision-making. "The proportion of women in senior positions in public services is not as high as compared to the political structures," he pointed out.

But viewed from a scenario of hopelessness in the 1990s, Warioba said SADC member states are "commendably" moving towards "a deliberate but gradual" increase in women’s representation in the corridors of power and decision-making.

She explained that member states were using a number of measures, including constitutional and party quotas, increased campaigns, educational programmes and awareness-raising on the election of women to positions of decision-making.

South Africa, which is one of the star performers, has 31.3 percent representation of women in Parliament and 33.3 percent women representation in government.

Mozambique is also doing well in Parliament, where women representation is 31.2 percent but representation of women in cabinet is only 13.04 percent, she said.

According to the latest gender parity scorecard, Botswana has 18 percent of women MPs and is unlikely to attain the regional target but has performed well by recording a 27 percent women representation in cabinet, following a reshuffle in 2002.

Also far below the regional target to be attained by 2005 is Zambia, where women make 12.2 percent of parliamentary representation but 15 percent representation in cabinet, and Tanzania, where women constitute 21.3 percent of legislative members.

Seychelles, the main exception in the regard, has proved to be a good performer at all levels, with the latest figures showing a record 60 percent of women in local government, 31 percent principal secretaries and 42 percent directors general.

"This indicates that some member states will be able to attain the targets set, while others might not be able to attain the targets, but they are on course in the process of increasing the number of women in decision-making positions," Ramsamy said.

But gender activists in Tanzania are pessimistic and believe that women of Southern Africa still face a long, hard struggle to assert their rights in a patriarchal society that relegates them to submission and a lifetime of powerlessness and discrimination.

With Tanzania as an example, they charge that the poor gender scorecard showing women still lagging behind in political leadership is mainly due to lack of commitment by governments and political parties, which they say are also unduly dominated by men.

Like many other sub-Saharan nations, men dominate almost all machinery of power in Tanzania including in civil service, national assembly and embassies, which has a single woman representative. Men have held top government positions of president, vice- president and prime minister since independence some 40 years ago.

A number of states in southern Africa are expected to hold elections in 2004 and 2005. "Such elections will provide an opportunity for countries, which have not yet reached the set target to do so," Dr. Ramsamy said. (ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/IP/WL/BL/SM/03)

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