Feature

By Frazer Potani, Lilongwe, Malawi

While serving as Executive Director for Association of Progressive Women (APW), Reen Kachere fought for women’s rights and empowerment in all sectors including politics.

She believed that if women are supported in Malawi where they are in majority the country could achieve social economic development and eradicate poverty.

Kachere encouraged women work extra-harder to be recognized in society in order to rise to the top to occupy decision making positions.

Few months before the May 2009 General Elections Kachere decided to demonstrate what she preached by resigning from her position at APW to contest in her home area in Mwanza District.

She contested in a male dominated constituency but despite facing all forms of intimidation from her male rivals and their supporters emerged winner securing a seat in Parliament proving that women can participate in politics than just dancing for male politicians.

The gods smiled on Kachere because when President Bingu wa Mutharika hired his cabinet in June last year, her name was on the list as Minister responsible for People with Disabilities and the Elderly.

Prior to the General Elections while in her well-pressed black suit with white stripes Kachere stood in front of 15 journalists in a hall at Hippos View Lodge lying on the banks of Shire River in Liwonde, Machinga.

Then she demonstrated how she had danced for over 30 years during the country’s late first president, Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s political rallies.

Kachere demonstrated the dancing antics at a two-day Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) electoral reporting training for journalists in November 2008.

The demonstration was in response to a question by a journalist on why Malawian women continued to dance for male politicians despite the Civil Society’s calls for the practice to be rooted out to instead fully empower women in politics than just suing them as male politicians’ entertainers.

Kachere said while she had stopped dancing for male politicians then, she did not condemn women still patronizing political rallies to sing and dance for them.

She however, said while the women had the right to dance they might have been doing it out of illiteracy.

“Illiteracy levels are high in this country and the [male] politicians are capitalizing on their [women’s] illiteracy.
During the one-party era, like them, I used to dance and even enjoyed it. But later I realized that the time I spent dancing for male politicians could be used profitably in one way or another,” said Kachere.

She was however, optimistic that in 50 years time women in Malawi would not be just dancers for male politicians because by then literacy levels would have increased.

But Kachere was quick to express her concern that more women in Malawi voted for men as Members of Parliament (MPs) during General Elections instead of fellow women.

“There is a wrong perception in this country that a Member of Parliament is supposed to be a man not a woman,” she said.

Kachere explained that therefore, there is a need for more civic education to sensitize Malawians that in democracy men and women have an equal right to participate in politics at all levels.


She further said to increase women participation in politics, APW was part of the network supporting women to, in large numbers, contest in the last General Elections.

MEC’s Chairperson responsible for Electoral Services Georgina Chikoko concurred with Kachere saying although women are few in Parliament they comprise majority voters during every General Election in Malawi.

“For example during the last General Elections, 60 out of every 100 registered voters were women,” said Chikoko.

She therefore, urged journalists in the country to encourage women to participate in the electoral process during General Elections.

During the May 19 General Election saw the number of women Members of Parliament in Malawi rise from 14 percent to 22 percent but indeed more still need to be done to empower women.

Out of about 125 women competed for the 193 seats, with just only 43 successfully gaining ground.

However, for the first time since Malawi attained independence from Britain in 1964, the country has a female Vice-President also former Foreign Affairs Minister Joyce Banda,”

But to Agatha Bimphi, 57, a mother of nine children from Mitundu, Lilongwe rural who for over 40 years has been dancing for politicians sees nothing wrong to be a male-politician’s entertainer.

“I danced for the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), United Democratic Front (UDF) and currently for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP),” she said while in DPP blue colours.

Bimphi said she enjoys dancing for just for the fun of it and it is also out of political gatherings that she interacts with fellow women.

“I see nothing wrong. Apart from dancing at political podiums I also dance for God in my church choir every Sunday,” she said.

While commending President Bingu wa Mutharika and his government’s efforts in women empowerment through among other things, appointing them in decision making positions, the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) says more has to still be done.

The organization notes that for instance, despite that the number of women in Parliament has increased in the last General Election as compared to 2004, only one woman chairs one of all DPP male dominated Parliamentary Committees.

“Of the 16 committees of parliament only one, the Committee on International Relations is chaired by a woman,” says the organization.

At a post General Elections women meeting in Lilongwe, DPP Parliamentarian Otriia Moyo Jere admitted that most women Members of Parliament are new hence ignorant on how to lobby for positions in the Parliamentary Committees.

“Male parliamentarians took advantage of our ignorance to find themselves in these Parliamentary Committees. But had the civil society before Parliamentary Committees’ appointments lobbied for women representation in them many women would have made it,” she said.

Gender and Community Development Minister Patricia Kaliati however, said some women in the country also have to blame why women are underrepresented in decision making positions in Malawi and remain just entertainers of male politicians.

She said for instance, Malawi had many credible women who could stand as Members of Parliament in the last year’s General Elections and even deliver more than men.

“But some women are stumbling blocks for fellow women’s empowerment because they pull fellow women down,” said Kaliati.

CHRR Executive Director Undule Mwakasungula said Malawi pledged to achieve 30 percent women representation in decision-making by 2005.

Mwakasungula however, said men still dominate in everything yet problems confronting the country affect more women than men.

“Ask them [women] of the long distances they walk everyday to fetch water; talk of the impact of HIV and AIDS. Talk of the long distances they travel to get to the nearest health centre for medical care only to be told that there are no drugs. It is women who have the first hand information of these problems,” said Mwakasungula.

He was however quick to say that he is encouraged by Mutharika’s efforts to empower women.

“We hope that he [Mutharika] will continue carrying the torch he carried in Oslo,[Norway] to empower women at all levels in this country,” he said.

Meanwhile MEC’s archives reveal that women have been abused as male-political entertainers dating to colonial times of Nyasaland Africa Congress (NAC).