Malawi

As the country gears for the 2009 presidential polls, Women in Politics, a gender coordinating network, is strategising on how best to lobby and increase the representation of women in Parliament.
To read the full article, please visit the Daily Times' Website.

NGO Gender Network says it will start meeting women aspirants across the country to strategise on their ambitious plan to have a representation of more than 40 percent of women in Parliament during the next year’s general elections.
To read the full article, please visit The Daily Times

The Norwegian embassy in Malawi has provided a grant to women's organizations to enhance the skills and confidence of women candidates so they can run effective campaigns and overcome gender based discrimination, and for civic awareness campaigns on the need for more women in decision-making positions. Already 425 women have shown interest in running in 2009 out of which 200 women have met party qualifications to run.
To read more, please see the Malawi Daily Times website

There cannot be sustainable women empowerment in development and politics if women lobby groups leave out culture in their campaigns, Chikwawa District Commissioner Lawford Palani has said. He said most organisations lobbying for greater women representation were forgetting culture as a crucial component in the quest to achieve the SADC 30 percent women participation goal, set in Blantyre in 1997.
To read the full article, please visit The Daily Times

MCP, the country’s major opposition party, has said it will not give any special treatment to its women aspirants for parliamentary seats—to fulfil the 50/50 Sadc declaration. But Malawi still has the lowest representation of women in decision-making position in the region. There is only 16 percent representation of women in the Executive arm of government, 12 percent in the Judiciary and 14 percent in the Legislature.
To read the full article, please visit the Nation Online's Website.

Executive Director for Gender Support Programme (GESP), Cecilia Mussa said on Saturday most political parties were favouring men to women to stand as aspirants, a situation she described as detrimental to achieving 50-50 representation in the National Assembly. Speaking at Dowa Community Ground where GESP held a voter registration awareness campaign, said most women lack support from their respective political parties, resulting in their withdrawal from primary elections.

An unprecedented number of Muslim women are stepping forward onto the political scene and contesting the upcoming legislative elections, which many of them see as a chance to change misconceptions about women rights in Islam.About 5.8 million Malawians are expected to vote in the country's fourth democratic multi-party elections, already tipped as the most hotly contested since 1994. Some 1,151 candidates, including around 120 Muslim women, will slug it out in the parliamentary race.

The May 19 presidential and parliamentary elections in Malawi will have more women candidates than ever. Statistics indicate that there are about 243 female candidates this year compared to 154 in 2004 elections. The increasing number is attributed to the moral and financial support the aspiring women candidates are getting from the organizations fighting for equal representation in decision-making positions
To read the full article, please visit the Voice of America's Website.