After Big Brother Africa, Natasha gears for Malawi parliamentary seat
One of Malawi’s representatives to this year’s Big Brother Africa (BBA) The Chase Natasha Tonthola says she is nursing ambitions to contest, for the second time, for the parliamentary seat in one of the constituencies in eastern district of Balaka.
Malawi is expected to hold tripartite elections next year whose voter registration exercise in currently underway.
Tonthola, who failed during the 2004 primary elections of United Democratic Front (UDF) , says her ambition is in no way connected to the new status she has gained after participating in the BBA.
“Some of you will be saying just because I have been to the BBA then I have the guts to eye a parliamentary seat. If you go back, you will see what am talking about, have been in politics and so this is just a continuation,” a local newspaper, Daily Times quotes her saying.
She says she hatched the plans to try again before she went into the house and now it’s time she would first go to the constituency she didn’t disclose and talk to the people there.
Tonthola also declined to mention the party she will contest for this time around but she was quick to say that as a woman her role model and source of inspiration is the leader of the ruling People’s Party (PP) President Joyce Banda.
“As a woman, President Joyce Banda has showed that there is nothing which can stop us from contesting as leaders. We can go far as long as we have a vision and work hard,” she said.
She says since she come from a poor background she wants to be doing charity work as well saying it was difficult for her to approach some organizations for help in the past because she was not known,” she said.
Tonthola owns a restaurant in the capital Lilongwe and was more popular and trusted in the BBA house such that she was tasked to host Airtel Talk show where she was seen interviewing fellow housemates.
She will join a bandwagon of other artists who are also vying for parliamentary seats in the next year’s elections among them musician Lawrence Mbenjere and Malawi Writers Union (Mawu) president Sambalikagwa Mvona.
