A renowned gender activist Seodi White who is also chief technical director of the Public Sector Reforms in the Office of President and Cabinet (OPC) has been widely condemned by the public for abusing gender card in defense of Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Jane Ansah.
Jane Ansah is being asked to resign from being MEC chairperson as she is being accused of mismanaging May 21 presidential vote results.
White, during a news conference held at Mount Soche in Blantyre said Ansah is being prosecuted because for being a woman.
A dozen of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) women led by White has been given a sum of K10, 000 each to shed tears for Ansah in the forthcoming women parade to be conducted tomorrow in Blantyre.
In her weeping stunt, White said Ansah was being insulted humiliated and castigated as the calls made to her resignation are gender issues.
This is violence against women. It is gender based violence. Dr. Jane Ansah will not resign. From today all women in Malawi are Jane Ansahs,” she said when she cried dramatically.
However, Seodi’s call has been given a deaf ear by the public including women on social media platforms, saying the electoral body was once in the hands of a woman Anastanzia Msosa who presided over two national elections but remained credited for managing well the polls.
US based Malawian Silaba Mpasu pointed out that what Seodi is doing does not make any sense as she is the same person who spearheaded the downfall of Joyce Banda the first female president of the country.
“You can’t choose what to wear on your feminism cloak, you viciously attacked Joyce Banda (Malawi’s first female president.),” writes Mpasu.
Concurring with Mpasu, former Malawi’s big brother representative Fatima Nkata said the fight is not against Jane Ansah as a woman but the office responsible for the most fraudulent elections Malawi has ever seen.
“Don’t get it twisted. We, the people are not taking into the streets demanding that Jane Ansah steps down because she is a woman. We are protesting against Justice Ansah, chairperson of the disgraceful electoral commission of the sham of a presidential election she presided over,” Fatima Nkata writes.
Social political commentator Idriss Ali Nassah also condemned Seodi saying she is “recklessly, peddling the false narrative that Ansah is being targeted for criticism because she is a woman.
Law Expert Allan Ntata posed a question to Seodi “Where were you when people with albinism were being killed” citing that she should have cried for them.
