INGE AMUNDSEN AND HAPPY KAYUNI
CHAPTER 1: AN INTRODUCTION
Chapter seven, Local Government Councils. A Potential Arena for Women’s Substantive Representation by Asiyati Lorraine Chiweza, looks at women representation at the local level, in the local councils. Chiweza examines what motivated women to stand for the 2014 local elections, and finds that the development needs of their home areas are a major concern, such as lack of portable water and income generating activities for women. Also early marriages of girls and other women interests’ are important motivating factors for women to enter politics. However, when elected, their representation in service committees is low and they rarely reach beyond the role of vice-chairpersons of the councils; they are inexperienced and struggle to cope with the demands of political office. In Chapter eight, The Gatekeepers. Woman Political Participation in Phalombe and Chiradzulu Districts, Happy Kayuni examines what makes women volunteer for political positions at the local level, with a focus on women standing for local elections and women seeking positions within the local and district party structures. He notes that some of the important factors that drive women to aspire for political office include support from spouses and traditional and religious leaders, plus exposure to development projects, NGOs, and local government institutions. Women also face a number of inhibitive factors, however, such as the competitiveness and corruption associated with politics. Kayuni argues that the ‘gatekeepers’ within the parties (people with power within a party, usually party chairpersons and secretaries) determine, for the most part, women’s entry into politics. They can promote but also hinder women candidature. Chapter nine, Women in Political Parties: The Politics of Participation by Kondwani Farai Chikadza, also looks at women in political parties. Chikadza argues that party politics is a masculine domain. However, activism and personalities have been challenging the established rules of the game (both the formal and the informal). For instance, at the local level of the party structures (branch and district committees), there is a full balance between men and women (and youth) within most political parties. Chikadza finds there are formal rules that ensure equal representation at the lower levels, and informal rules that ensure male domination at the higher levels of the parties. Women representation at the lower level is mainly ‘symbolic’, and it will therefore take more than changes to the party organisations to change the status quo. In Chapter ten, The Gender Machinery: Opportunities and Challenges for Women in Central Government, Michael Chasukwa outlines the many structures and institutions that have been established in order to promote women participation, at the national level in particular. This ‘gender machinery’, which includes a ‘Ministry of Gender’, can paradoxically, as Chasukwa argues, “risk institutionalizing and deepening” the gender gap. He argues that the fact that the structures of the national gender machinery are always headed by a female minister, and that the ministry is constantly underfunded and to a large extend donor-driven, can make gender issues “for women only” and make the efforts cosmetic and symbolic only. Finally, Charlotte Wezi Mesikano-Malonda makes a strong case for the introduction of quotas for women, in her chapter Gender Quotas: A Possible Way to Include Women in Politics. Her main argument is that women political representation in Malawi is so low, and even on a downward trend, that voluntary quotas (a minimum of women on the parties’ candidate lists) will not suffice. What is needed is to reserve seats for women in parliament and local councils, and to put in place legal requirements 9