There are mixed feelings over the Speaker of the Malawi National Assembly, Mrs. Catherine Gotani Hara’s, loss in the recent presidential elections for the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) held in Luanda in Angola from 23 October to 27 October 2023.
As a matter of background, the IPU is made up of 179 Member Parliaments and has 14 Associate Members. It was founded more than 130 years ago as the first multilateral political organization in the world, encouraging cooperation and dialogue between all nations.
It was founded in 1889 as an association of MPs dubbed the Inter-Parliamentary Conference and then renamed it to the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 1899.
The IPU’s main goal is to facilitate parliamentary diplomacy across the globe. It also empowers parliaments and parliamentarians to promote peace, democracy and sustainable development around the world.
During this year’s elections, there were four candidates contesting for the position of the president. In fact, 303 votes were cast at the 147th IPU congress meeting.
The results showed that our own Mrs. Catherine Gotani Hara came second with 61 votes. Mrs. Adji Diarra Mergane of Senegal grabbed the third position with 52 votes. The last one was Mrs. Marwa abdibashir Haji of Somalia who got only 11 votes.
The woman of the moment was Dr. Tulia Ackson of the Republic of Tanzania who amassed 172 votes representing 57% of the cast votes.
Much as there is a big vote difference between the winner, Dr. Tulia Ackson and the runner-up, Mrs. Catherine Gotani Hara, scooping the second position is no mean achievement at all.
There are two pertinent questions we need to address at this juncture.
Firstly, why are some Malawians happy over Mrs. Catherine Gotani Hara’s dismal loss of the IPU elections?
The reason is that the Speaker gluttonously and selfishly used tax-payers’ money to travel on a business class to about 10 countries over the past 4 months doing a campaign for the position of the President of IPU at a time when Malawi’s economy is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Malawians are wondering if the Tonse Alliance Government is really serious in implementing austere economic measures itself advocated.
The second pertinent question is, why did Mrs. Catherine Gotani Hara lose the IPU elections?
I took time to analyse the curriculum vitae (CVs) of all four candidates. They are all very rich CVs with a wide range of experience, leadership skills and educational background.
In my view, I think Hon Gotani Hara was not strategic enough in her campaign for the position. It seems she had run short of time. That was why she was racing against time by traveling to 10 countries within 4 months.
The truth of the matter is that if you aspire for the public position, start strategizing well in advance of time.
The winner of the 147th Congress IPU elections, Dr. Tulia Ackson, started showing her interest in IPU positions when she became the President of African Geopolitical Group within IPU in 2022.
Such a position enabled her to interact with union members and it was a campaign tool on its own. She did not need to panic the way Mrs. Gotani Hara did.
Furthermore, besides Tulia and Catherine being speakers of National Assembly in their respective countries, Tulia’s professional profile is much richer than Catherine’s.
Tulia holds a PhD in law from the University of Cape Town. In her practice, she rose to the position of Deputy Attorney General of Tanzania.
In the academia, she also rose to the position of the Associate Dean in the Faculty of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam.
On the other hand, Catherine cited her leadership skills as working under a UK-based organisation, being a cabinet minister and an entrepreneur prior to her ascendancy to the position of a speaker and Member of Parliament.
In conclusion, even though taxpayers’ money was expended for travelling to 10 countries campaigning for the IPU presidency, Mrs. Catherine Gotani Hara has proved to us that opportunities are here and beyond our borders.
We should not fear failure because failure does not mean defeat. It is simply a pillar of success if you learn something from it.
