Executive Director for Governance, Gender, Justice and Development (GGJDC), Ruth Manda has hailed local leaders in Balaka, the media and the district as a whole for embracing the 50:50 campaign in the district.

This comes amid the background that Balaka has managed to elect two female parliamentarians and one councilor during the just ended tripartite elections.

Ireen Mambala from Balaka South Constituency, Bertha Ndebere from Balaka West and Linda Mwapasa from Bwaila Ward are the female contestants, who have made it to Parliament and Council respectively.

Manda said they owe the success to all people.

She said that, “We owe the success to the chiefs for assisting us to tell their subjects to vote for women aspirants. The public as well as the media has helped in publicizing our campaign. We do not take this for granted.

According to Manda, there is still more work to do so that come the next election in 2024 more women should secure more votes and make it in different political positions.

“We will not stop from here. We will push and push. Even though on the local government elections things have not worked out well, we will still continue advocating for more women representation so that people have the knowledge on the importance of choosing them,” she said.

District Gender Officer for Balaka, Hanna Nyirenda pointed out that the district has done well as compared to the previous election.

“The District has performed better as we have managed to reach up to 50 per cent of female representation in the National Assembly from Balaka as compared to 2014 where we had only 1 female Member of Parliament.

“In terms of councilors, we managed to get one, which is a plus as well compared to the previous election where we had none,” she said.

According to the Gender Officer, there was need to look into the resource aspect, as this hindered them greatly during the campaign period.