JB political life

Her political life

Joyce Banda entered politics in 1999. She won a parliamentary seat in Malawi's third democratic election as a Member of Parliament (MP) during the first days of multiparty dispensation under the United Democratic Front, (UDF) led by the first multiparty president in Malawi Dr. Bakili Elson Muluzi.

She represented the Zomba Malosa constituency.  Muluzi appointed her as Minister for Gender and Community Services. During her term of office as minister, she fought to enact the Domestic Violence Bill, which had failed for seven years. She designed the National Platform for Action on Orphans and Vulnerable Children and the Zero Tolerance Campaign Against Child Abuse.

In 2004, she was re-elected as a Member of Parliament for the same UDF Party. Bingu wa Mutharika became President. Even though Banda was not a member of his party, Mutharika appointed her as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2006. Banda moved to change Malawi's recognition of the legitimate government of China from the Republic of China on Taiwan to the People's Republic of China on the mainland; she claimed the switch would bring economic benefits to Malawi. In 2010, China finished the construction of a new parliament building in Lilongwe.

Factions in DPP

The relationship between Banda and President Bingu wa Mutharika had become increasingly tense because of Mutharika's attempts to position his own brother, Peter Mutharika, as his successor. 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. 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.