Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the 24th and current President of Liberia. she was elected President in the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006. She successfully ran for re-election in 2011. The next two were placed in those positions purely by destiny.
The second African woman president is then Senate Speaker Rose Francine Rogombe who was sworn in June 2009 as Gabon's first woman president for a transitional period at a ceremony in Libreville, after the death of Omar Bongo Ondimba. She became president by virtue of being the Speaker of the Gabonese Senate. She was constitutionally ineligible from standing in the presidential poll due within a timeframe of between 30 and 45 days and won by Ali Bongo.
 |
| President Joyce Hilda Banda of Malawi |
The third African woman president is Joyce Hilda Banda who is a Malawian politician and has been the President of Malawi since 7 April 2012. An educator and grassroots womens' rights activist, she was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and Vice-President of Malawi from May 2009 to April 2012. Banda took office as President following the sudden death of President Bingu wa Mutharika. She is Malawi's first female president and was the country's first female vice-president.
She was also Member of Parliament and Minister for Gender, Children's Affairs and Community Services. Prior to an active career in politics she was the founder of the Joyce Banda Foundation, founder of the National Association of Business Women (NABW), Young Women Leaders Network and the Hunger Project. She was listed in Forbes Magazine 2011 as the third most powerful woman in Africa.
She is the founder and leader of the People's Party created in 2011, and prior to Bingu wa Mutharika's death was considered likely to contest the Presidency of Malawi in the 2014 general election. The People's Party is scheduled to have a convention later this year, with Joyce Banda likely to be confirmed as party leader.
Banda comes from Malemia, a village in the Zomba District of Malawi. She has a Cambridge School Certificate, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Early Childhood Education from Columbus University and a Diploma in Management that she received in Italy. By age 25, she had three children and was living in Nairobi, Kenya. In 1975, a growing women's movement in Kenya provided Banda the spirit she needed to take her children and leave an abusive marriage. Between 1985 and 1997 Banda managed and established various businesses and organisations including Ndekani Garments, (1985), Akajuwe Enterprises (1992), and Kalingidza Bakery (1995). Her success moved her to help other women achieve financial independence and break the cycles of abuse and poverty.
She is married to Richard Banda, former Chief Justice of the Republic of Malawi.
Public Offices (2004–2009)
Prior to becoming Malawi's first female Vice-President and later first female President, she was a Member of Parliament for the Zomba-Malosa constituency. She was also Minister of Gender, Child Welfare and Community Services before being appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs by President Bingu wa Mutharika on 1 June 2006. As Minister of Gender, Child Welfare and Community Services she fought to enact the Domestic Violence Bill, which had failed for seven years previously. She designed the National Platform for Action on Orphans and Vulnerable Children and the Zero Tolerance Campaign Against Child Abuse.
Vice President (2009–2012)
Banda ran as the vice-presidential candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the May 2009 presidential election, running alongside Mutharika, the DPP presidential candidate. She served as Malawi's first female vice-president, before becoming the country's first woman president on Mutharika's death. In a surprise move by the DPP, Joyce Banda and second vice president Khumbo Kachali were fired as the vice Presidents of the DPP on 12 December 2010 for undefined 'anti-party' activities. In attempts to ostracize her, the president had continued to give roles that were previously held by her to Callista Mutharika who was included in the cabinet in September 2011. The court had blocked attempts by Bingu wa Mutharika to fire her as Vice-President on constitutional grounds. This included attempts to seize her official government vehicle and to block her from registering her new party. On 8 September 2011, the role of Vice President was left out in a cabinet reshuffle. However, she was still the legal Vice-President of the country as mandated by the constitution. She was urged by DPP spokesman Hetherwick Ntaba to resign as Vice-President.
Factions in DPP
The relationship between her and the previous President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika had become increasingly tense because of Mutharika's attempts to position his own brother, Peter Mutharika as the successor of the party and as the next president of the country. Although she was fired from the position as Vice President of the DPP together with second Vice President Khumbo Kachali, she continued to serve as Vice-President of Malawi as stipulated in the constitution of the Republic of Malawi. This move led to mass resignations in the DPP and the formation of networks that supported her candidacy to become President of Malawi in the 2014 general election. The DPP denied that mass resignations had occurred and insisted that they were only a few.
People's Party
Joyce Banda is the founder and leader of the People's Party, formed in 2011 after Banda was expelled from the ruling DPP when she refused to endorse President Mutharika's younger brother Peter Mutharika as the successor to the presidency for the 2014 general election.
No comments:
Post a Comment