{"id":8622,"date":"2012-04-10T19:31:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T19:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=8622"},"modified":"2012-04-10T19:31:55","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T19:31:55","slug":"go-where-you-dont-know-malawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/04\/10\/go-where-you-dont-know-malawi\/","title":{"rendered":"Go Where You Don’t Know > Malawi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malawi isn’t on the typical tourist list of must-see places– but come explore this African country so together we can:<\/strong><\/p>\n

BBC by Raphael Tentani<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joyce Banda, who has made history becoming Malawi\u2019s first female president and only the second woman to lead a country in Africa, has a track record of fighting for women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

She took power over the weekend following the death of 78-year-old President Bingu wa Mutharika, who died in office after heading up the southern Africa country since 2004.<\/p>\n

Mr Mutharika\u2019s decision to appoint her as his running mate for the 2009 elections surprised many in Malawi\u2019s mainly conservative, male-dominated society \u2013 which had never before had a female vice-president.<\/p>\n

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<\/h2>\n

She will never be president, how can a mandasi [fritter] seller be president?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Equally surprising was her decision to publicly stand up to her boss \u2013 by refusing to endorse his plans for his brother, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mutharika, to succeed him as president in 2014 when he was due to retire.<\/p>\n

She was promptly thrown out of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party \u2013 and subjected to daily doses of derision at public rallies and on Malawi\u2019s state airwaves.<\/p>\n

A senior ruling party official openly said Malawi was \u201cnot ready for a female president\u201d, while First Lady Callista Mutharika said Mrs Banda was fooling herself that she was a serious politician \u2013 saying she was a mere market woman selling fritters.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will never be president, how can a mandasi [fritter] seller be president?\u201d Mrs Mutharika said.<\/p>\n

\"Joyce\u00a0Joyce Banda fell out with the late President Bingu wa Mutharika<\/div>\n

Mrs Banda took all this in her stride, saying she was glad to be identified with market women since more than 80% of Malawian women belong to that category: \u201cYes, she\u2019s right, I\u2019m indeed a mandasi seller and I\u2019m proud of it because the majority of women in Malawi are like us, mandasi sellers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malawi isn’t on the typical tourist list of must-see places– but come explore this African country so together we can: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}