Politics of numbers, quality
The ‘ruling’ Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should have been on cloud nine when it emerged that 656 people had put themselves forward to be the party’s torchbearers in the 2009 Parliamentary elections. But, of course, there is the small matter of primary elections to be negotiated from which 463 people will emerge bleeding, with scores of them crying political murder.
Those in the DPP say the number only vindicates what they have been saying all along that the ‘ruling party’ is the most popular party in the country. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I have serious problems with the party’s positioning itself as the most popular.
Until the DPP squares up to the other parties at elections held on a larger scale, it has no right to claim it is the most popular party. The 2005 by-elections, which the party brandishes as a yardstick for its perceived popularity, proved nothing. At that time, President Bingu wa Mutharika was riding on the wave of sympathy and the victories in the six constituencies had as much to with his much oft-touted economic policies as they were by sympathy. The 2009 polls will be another piece of cake altogether.
For starters, there is little assurance on the ground that the people who sympathised with President Mutharika and his party still hold the same emotion. A lot has happened since then. The 2008/9 budget being an example when, contrary to previous occasions, government was left to fight for its own survival; a departure from the past when, among others, vigils were held to force parliamentarians to prioritise the budget over everything else.
That aside, the enormity of the challenge facing the party (or indeed, any other) is scaring. Six constituencies does not even claw closer to 193 constituencies spread across the country.
If I were in the DPP, instead of gloating over the ‘unprecedented’ number of aspirants, I should have checked myself. The reason the party has been flooded by aspirants is not because of its popularity; the DPP is the party in power, illegitimate as it may be, and it would not be treason, I suppose, to say ruling parties the world over have this infectious tendency to dip their fingers into the public coffers to perpetuate themselves. Now, some of those contestants may not share the ideology of the DPP (and I’m hoping, forlornly as it may be, that it has one) and are only in the party for it to piggyback them into Parliament. What happens after the elections will be determined by who will be calling the shots from the New State House.
But, perhaps, the greatest worry for the DPP should be the quality of contestants. Other than looking at how blue the contestants are, I would have expected the party to have looked at what qualities the contestants bring into the party. It doesn’t have to accept every Jim and Jack, so long as he is blue and eloquent in the English — as if eloquence in English is the accepted currency for knowledge and ability to debate.
We have had countless MPs who have never taken part in the parliamentary debates — the nearest their name ever came up was to interject to someone having the floor or being experts at name-calling in the honourable chambers.
Then we have had those whose eloquence in English would prompt one to believe they were born, bred and raised in the backstreets of London but in sooth, the closest they were to London was some area in Mzimba called Loudon.
But, of course, I’m hoping for a miracle. In politics, quality seems to count for little and numbers mean everything.
Those in the DPP say the number only vindicates what they have been saying all along that the ‘ruling party’ is the most popular party in the country. Maybe yes, maybe no, but I have serious problems with the party’s positioning itself as the most popular.
Until the DPP squares up to the other parties at elections held on a larger scale, it has no right to claim it is the most popular party. The 2005 by-elections, which the party brandishes as a yardstick for its perceived popularity, proved nothing. At that time, President Bingu wa Mutharika was riding on the wave of sympathy and the victories in the six constituencies had as much to with his much oft-touted economic policies as they were by sympathy. The 2009 polls will be another piece of cake altogether.
For starters, there is little assurance on the ground that the people who sympathised with President Mutharika and his party still hold the same emotion. A lot has happened since then. The 2008/9 budget being an example when, contrary to previous occasions, government was left to fight for its own survival; a departure from the past when, among others, vigils were held to force parliamentarians to prioritise the budget over everything else.
That aside, the enormity of the challenge facing the party (or indeed, any other) is scaring. Six constituencies does not even claw closer to 193 constituencies spread across the country.
If I were in the DPP, instead of gloating over the ‘unprecedented’ number of aspirants, I should have checked myself. The reason the party has been flooded by aspirants is not because of its popularity; the DPP is the party in power, illegitimate as it may be, and it would not be treason, I suppose, to say ruling parties the world over have this infectious tendency to dip their fingers into the public coffers to perpetuate themselves. Now, some of those contestants may not share the ideology of the DPP (and I’m hoping, forlornly as it may be, that it has one) and are only in the party for it to piggyback them into Parliament. What happens after the elections will be determined by who will be calling the shots from the New State House.
But, perhaps, the greatest worry for the DPP should be the quality of contestants. Other than looking at how blue the contestants are, I would have expected the party to have looked at what qualities the contestants bring into the party. It doesn’t have to accept every Jim and Jack, so long as he is blue and eloquent in the English — as if eloquence in English is the accepted currency for knowledge and ability to debate.
We have had countless MPs who have never taken part in the parliamentary debates — the nearest their name ever came up was to interject to someone having the floor or being experts at name-calling in the honourable chambers.
Then we have had those whose eloquence in English would prompt one to believe they were born, bred and raised in the backstreets of London but in sooth, the closest they were to London was some area in Mzimba called Loudon.
But, of course, I’m hoping for a miracle. In politics, quality seems to count for little and numbers mean everything.
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