It has been a long while since the debate on the quota system started and it shows no signs of letting up — with twists and turns along the way, some of which are enlightening while others are outright ridiculous.
But what started as a serious and innocent debate on a matter of sharing the national cake equally has degenerated into a tribal tiff, with even President Bingu wa Mutharika himself getting sucked up in the tribal mud.
That the quota system has been established to right some wrong (perceived or real) is no sin, no, no sin at all if the reasons be right and you could say the president is within his limits to champion it.
President Mutharika then goes ahead to quote figures to justify his adoption of the quota system, some of which are as illuminating as they are confusing and only help in stockpiling the sense of suspicion to the whole saga.
First, he says the civil service is overpopulated with people from the Northern Region at the super scale in the government, which should be immoral if malicious intent can be proved in the matter. He buttresses his point on the quota system and the overpopulation in government with statistics which no doubt he should be privy to — which is no problem if the figures be right.
But he doesn’t stop there. He minutes, in detail, about how nepotism has eaten into Mzuzu University where people from the Northern Region dominate. Then he also throws into the mix how a region that has 12 percent of the national population and contributes only 20 percent to the economy should dominate places at the public universities.
Which, if you look at it closely, should be no problem at all. After all, as president, he must balance the national cake and if one region takes what ‘doesn’t belong’ to it, he has every reason to come to the rescue.
Then, out of the blues, he singles out an obscure Mzuzu Corner, which, before this week, was largely unknown beyond Chancellor College. If he were not president, I should have laughed at him all the way to his retirement day but he’s a president and an old man at that. And our culture demands that we must defer to our elders.
But anyone who knows Chancellor College very well should be either laughing at or feeling sorry for Mutharika. Mzuzu Corner is a sophisticated piece of ludicrous fiction which should never be peddled by anyone in that venerable office.
Mzuzu Corner is some place outside a cafe at Chancellor College where — to my knowledge — no lecturer visits for any other purpose, let alone do the unthinkable of leaking examinations to students.
We know the country faces a pervasive problem of examination cheating at primary and secondary school levels but to take it up further to the university is outright ridiculous. By making this accusation, Mutharika is casting aspersions on the academic abilities of graduates from the northern region and the moral uprightness of lecturers from the region.
I’m inclined to believe the president is being sarcastic or someone is deliberately misguiding the president. It reminds me of one of Aesop’s fables about an emperor who walked naked in the streets, in the vain belief he was wearing a very expensive attire after being conned by two swindlers.
The swindlers declared they could manufacture the finest cloth to be imagined whose material had the quality of being invisible to any man “who was unfit for his office or unpardonably stupid.”
Thus, the king, having being duped, ‘wore’ the attire and walked in the streets of his kingdom to show off his ‘expensive garment’, when, in sooth, he was walking about butt naked!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
On being un-Malawian
Mzamo, Malawi’s representative to Big Brother, is un-Malawian. She smokes like a chimney (very un-Malawian); she drinks like fish (absolutely un-Malawian); and to cap it all, she just had sex in the house and in public at that (outrageously un-Malawian).
A Malawian (and a Malawian woman at that) doesn’t smoke like a chimney (cigarettes are for men); never drinks like fish (it’s another man thing); and, well, does not get involved in embarrassing ‘sexcapades’ by any stretch (that’s the men’s terrain). Right? Wrong, very wrong!
I can understand the outrage from her family (I can’t think of any that wouldn’t be) that one of their own has just disgraced them (walaula mtundu) but that is their private grief and they are justified to it. Hence, I don’t believe, for a moment, that we, 14 million Malawians packed in a very tiny country, should be falling all over ourselves trying to prove we are more aggrieved than the next person.
Malawians love their cigarettes and you only have to look at how many people are puffing away their sorrows to appreciate this fact. Malawians worship their beer. Such is our reverence for the stuff that we have turned every corner in the townships into a drinking place. Lucius Banda sang a song about the romance between the Ngoni’s and their beer and that speaks volumes. Some brilliant scientists in Thyolo discovered you can distil a lot of kachasu if ARVs are used as an ingredient.
As for having sex in public, well, don’t skin me alive for this. Remember the priest and the nun at the airport; another priest and a woman in Mangochi (who were caught twice having sex in a car) and ask the police about how many people are caught in uncompromising positions in cars at night.
Tell me which resthouses (and some motels and lodges) are in the actual business of providing accommodation to genuine visitors. We have too many resthouses in towns (which are nothing more than ‘sexhouses’) where people walk in in pairs to do what we can only imagine. You might say, at least, they seek the decency of cover but what decency is there when it leaves little room for imagination?
Big Brother is a reality show, which requires of the contestants to behave in the manner they would at home (except that they have cameras and microphones recording their every move) — not as actors acting the roles of their life.
By the way, were Mzamo a man, would the outrage have been this strident? I’m not, in any way, trying to justify her indiscretions. In fact, she should have known the heartache she would be causing back home with any ‘misstep’.
Last year, Hazel Warren came back without lighting the sparks in the house but she received a hero’s welcome because she had behaved like a ‘Malawian’ just as Code Sangala before her. I have my doubts if Mzamo will be accorded the same accolade because she’s done something un-Malawian. So, who’s more Malawian?
Malawian are not as introverted as Hazel but neither are they as wild as Mzamo. We have the best and the worst of both.
By the way, who’s a bigger national embarrassment (and very un-Malawian) between someone who couldn’t sing the national anthem (dear me!) and another who had sex in Big Brother house? Zein Dudha, for all I know, embarrassed himself and the nation; Mzamo has embarrassed herself largely, her family to a large extent yes, but the nation? No, I don’t think so.
A Malawian (and a Malawian woman at that) doesn’t smoke like a chimney (cigarettes are for men); never drinks like fish (it’s another man thing); and, well, does not get involved in embarrassing ‘sexcapades’ by any stretch (that’s the men’s terrain). Right? Wrong, very wrong!
I can understand the outrage from her family (I can’t think of any that wouldn’t be) that one of their own has just disgraced them (walaula mtundu) but that is their private grief and they are justified to it. Hence, I don’t believe, for a moment, that we, 14 million Malawians packed in a very tiny country, should be falling all over ourselves trying to prove we are more aggrieved than the next person.
Malawians love their cigarettes and you only have to look at how many people are puffing away their sorrows to appreciate this fact. Malawians worship their beer. Such is our reverence for the stuff that we have turned every corner in the townships into a drinking place. Lucius Banda sang a song about the romance between the Ngoni’s and their beer and that speaks volumes. Some brilliant scientists in Thyolo discovered you can distil a lot of kachasu if ARVs are used as an ingredient.
As for having sex in public, well, don’t skin me alive for this. Remember the priest and the nun at the airport; another priest and a woman in Mangochi (who were caught twice having sex in a car) and ask the police about how many people are caught in uncompromising positions in cars at night.
Tell me which resthouses (and some motels and lodges) are in the actual business of providing accommodation to genuine visitors. We have too many resthouses in towns (which are nothing more than ‘sexhouses’) where people walk in in pairs to do what we can only imagine. You might say, at least, they seek the decency of cover but what decency is there when it leaves little room for imagination?
Big Brother is a reality show, which requires of the contestants to behave in the manner they would at home (except that they have cameras and microphones recording their every move) — not as actors acting the roles of their life.
By the way, were Mzamo a man, would the outrage have been this strident? I’m not, in any way, trying to justify her indiscretions. In fact, she should have known the heartache she would be causing back home with any ‘misstep’.
Last year, Hazel Warren came back without lighting the sparks in the house but she received a hero’s welcome because she had behaved like a ‘Malawian’ just as Code Sangala before her. I have my doubts if Mzamo will be accorded the same accolade because she’s done something un-Malawian. So, who’s more Malawian?
Malawian are not as introverted as Hazel but neither are they as wild as Mzamo. We have the best and the worst of both.
By the way, who’s a bigger national embarrassment (and very un-Malawian) between someone who couldn’t sing the national anthem (dear me!) and another who had sex in Big Brother house? Zein Dudha, for all I know, embarrassed himself and the nation; Mzamo has embarrassed herself largely, her family to a large extent yes, but the nation? No, I don’t think so.
An excuse for failure
A few months ago, the momentum for change of leadership in the Malawi Congress Party seemed so strong and so inexorable that we expected it to end swiftly with the target of the movement throwing in the towel and the party marching on in triumph.
But one act of nature checked it in mid-step and changed its destiny. The death of Ishmael Chafukira, the leader of the movement, seemed to throw any gains it had made (if any) into the gutter.
Some commentators, though, saw this as an opportunity for other people in the ‘movement’ to come to the fore and make this not just Chafukira’s personal vendetta against Malawi Congress Party leader John Tembo but a fight for genuine cause in the party.
Any such expectations, however, vanished when the other members of the movement were reluctant to take over the motion to ‘strip’ Tembo of the position of leader of opposition in Parliament. But if that was bad enough, some revelations this week have put paid to any pretentions that this was a collective fight.
While some members of the taskforce want to fight against the party from within (which should be encouraged as it fosters intra-party democracy), others are of the opinion they are better off forming a new party, appropriately named New Malawi Congress Party.
They have a precedent, they say, with Gwanda Chakuamba and his New Republican Party which was an offshoot of the Republican Party. But perhaps, they needn’t have gone that far for inspiration. Hetherwick Ntaba, erstwhile spokesman for the MCP, broke ranks with the party to form a dubiously named New Congress for Democracy.
Suffice to say, none of the two examples inspires any confidence in anyone; NCD was buried the day the 2004 elections results were announced, having emerged out of the polls with none of the respect it had craved for; the NRP is still fighting a battle of identities and to its credit, it is flourishing — only just — but it is just bidding its times before it also keels over.
The moniker for new party aside, I was just alarmed by the insinuations made by some members of the taskforce, who, in their show of cowardice and admission of failure, are looking for mysterious killers who are out to get them.
They claimed they don’t want to get ‘martyred’ like Chafukira — which is some statement that begs a host of questions than they care to answer. Do they know more about the death of Chafukira than we — or for that matter, the police — do?
From the innuendos, one can tell the members know the ‘murderers’ of Chafukira who have been left scot-free, perhaps to harass, maim or even kill the other members of the taskforce.
Is it the case that I don’t know anything or is it that there is a false cause and effect established by members of the taskforce who want to use it to camouflage their failure?
But one act of nature checked it in mid-step and changed its destiny. The death of Ishmael Chafukira, the leader of the movement, seemed to throw any gains it had made (if any) into the gutter.
Some commentators, though, saw this as an opportunity for other people in the ‘movement’ to come to the fore and make this not just Chafukira’s personal vendetta against Malawi Congress Party leader John Tembo but a fight for genuine cause in the party.
Any such expectations, however, vanished when the other members of the movement were reluctant to take over the motion to ‘strip’ Tembo of the position of leader of opposition in Parliament. But if that was bad enough, some revelations this week have put paid to any pretentions that this was a collective fight.
While some members of the taskforce want to fight against the party from within (which should be encouraged as it fosters intra-party democracy), others are of the opinion they are better off forming a new party, appropriately named New Malawi Congress Party.
They have a precedent, they say, with Gwanda Chakuamba and his New Republican Party which was an offshoot of the Republican Party. But perhaps, they needn’t have gone that far for inspiration. Hetherwick Ntaba, erstwhile spokesman for the MCP, broke ranks with the party to form a dubiously named New Congress for Democracy.
Suffice to say, none of the two examples inspires any confidence in anyone; NCD was buried the day the 2004 elections results were announced, having emerged out of the polls with none of the respect it had craved for; the NRP is still fighting a battle of identities and to its credit, it is flourishing — only just — but it is just bidding its times before it also keels over.
The moniker for new party aside, I was just alarmed by the insinuations made by some members of the taskforce, who, in their show of cowardice and admission of failure, are looking for mysterious killers who are out to get them.
They claimed they don’t want to get ‘martyred’ like Chafukira — which is some statement that begs a host of questions than they care to answer. Do they know more about the death of Chafukira than we — or for that matter, the police — do?
From the innuendos, one can tell the members know the ‘murderers’ of Chafukira who have been left scot-free, perhaps to harass, maim or even kill the other members of the taskforce.
Is it the case that I don’t know anything or is it that there is a false cause and effect established by members of the taskforce who want to use it to camouflage their failure?
The names we have
One of my friends told me a story I found hard to believe on account of it being too ludicrous to be true. It was about some guy in some posh residential area who fortressed his house it looked like a maximum security prison than a residential place of free people. The perimeter fence was thick and high; the burglar bars on the doors and the windows were so dense and so strong only powerful machinery could prize them apart.
One day, however, he woke up to find his living room cleaned of everything, including the fibres from his carpet. For all the trouble in securing his house and its contents, he couldn’t understand how the thieves had found their way in.
An inquest of sorts into the burglary revealed the house’s Achilles’ heel. The burglars had gained entry to inside the perimeter fences through a drain. But as one group was burrowing their way through the culvert, another was having an altercation outside the gate, which drew the guards and the dogs.
With attention diverted, the other group clambered over the roof, removed the iron sheets and bingo! They were inside the house. In no time, they had swept the living room clean and melted into the comfort of darkness.
It was one story I found too implausible — that was until about two years ago when another colleague told me of a similar burglary at their office. He even showed me the pictures of the ransacked offices at Chichiri along Chipembere Highway in Blantyre.
President Bingu wa Mutharika’s endorsement of the quota system early this week reminded me of those two incidences.
I have no problem with the quota system or any other system if it guarantees quality and equity in the education system. But I believe the president’s endorsement is premised on the wrong grounds.
The president quoted some impressive figures to show discrepancies in government employment but one wonders, who employs these people? Is the quota system the only way of solving the imbalances in government employment system?
As Mutharika threw the figures in the faces of Malawians, perhaps he should have asked himself what was wrong (if anything) with Chikwawa that a district with a “population of 435,895 people only has 55 people in the government super scale level [grade P8 and above]. Yet Chitipa and Karonga, whose combined population is not even half of Chikwawa, have 225 in the super scale grades.”
Mutharika, as a policy maker, is wrong to prescribe medicine basing on symptomatic statistics. I don’t think there has been a deliberate policy in the north to over-represent itself in the university or in government.
Government’s quota system as affirmative action, which is what is called positive discrimination in policy studies, can only be fair in a country like South Africa where there was a deliberate policy to discriminate the blacks in the education system. That has not been the case in Malawi.
The solution, in my view, does not lie in government regulating the selections to the university but in it finding out what is wrong for Karonga and Chitipa to have more people on scales ‘inconsistent’ with their populations. Was nepotism at work in employing people or selecting students from Chitipa and Karonga? If nepotism was at work, what would stop people from Karonga and Chitipa from being employed even in the face of the quota system?
By the way, how do we classify someone as being from Karonga? Suppose, a Nyirenda from Karonga marries someone in Chikwawa, they have kids and they live in Blantyre. With time, the parents’ divorce and the wife takes custody of children and takes them to Chikwawa where they live until university selection time comes around.
Would the system accept the children (the Nyirenda’s) as being truly from Chikwawa? Obviously the system will be reluctant to accept a Nyirenda from Chikwawa. Anticipating those challenges, the children might change their name to Nyarenda.
Let’s not forget the past. MCP had a similar policy but people beat the system. People became like Bandas and Phiris and presented their district of origin as Kasungu or some other district when they had never set a foot there. They got selected. Some are still stuck with those names. Others dispensed of them.
By the way, did I hear President Mutharika was at one point known as Webster Thom? The president is on record to have said he changed his name because he had wanted to travel incognito for fear of persecution by the MCP secret operatives. What would prevent someone from changing his name to enter the university ‘incognito’?
So, just like that man who built a fortress for a house but found it wanting, the president’s policy might have good intentions (?) but people will still circumvent the system all the same. After all, what’s in a name?
There should be better ways of redistributing the national cake besides the quota system. The quota system is only a temporary measure meant to address a deep-seated problem. And identifying it is a bigger problem.
One day, however, he woke up to find his living room cleaned of everything, including the fibres from his carpet. For all the trouble in securing his house and its contents, he couldn’t understand how the thieves had found their way in.
An inquest of sorts into the burglary revealed the house’s Achilles’ heel. The burglars had gained entry to inside the perimeter fences through a drain. But as one group was burrowing their way through the culvert, another was having an altercation outside the gate, which drew the guards and the dogs.
With attention diverted, the other group clambered over the roof, removed the iron sheets and bingo! They were inside the house. In no time, they had swept the living room clean and melted into the comfort of darkness.
It was one story I found too implausible — that was until about two years ago when another colleague told me of a similar burglary at their office. He even showed me the pictures of the ransacked offices at Chichiri along Chipembere Highway in Blantyre.
President Bingu wa Mutharika’s endorsement of the quota system early this week reminded me of those two incidences.
I have no problem with the quota system or any other system if it guarantees quality and equity in the education system. But I believe the president’s endorsement is premised on the wrong grounds.
The president quoted some impressive figures to show discrepancies in government employment but one wonders, who employs these people? Is the quota system the only way of solving the imbalances in government employment system?
As Mutharika threw the figures in the faces of Malawians, perhaps he should have asked himself what was wrong (if anything) with Chikwawa that a district with a “population of 435,895 people only has 55 people in the government super scale level [grade P8 and above]. Yet Chitipa and Karonga, whose combined population is not even half of Chikwawa, have 225 in the super scale grades.”
Mutharika, as a policy maker, is wrong to prescribe medicine basing on symptomatic statistics. I don’t think there has been a deliberate policy in the north to over-represent itself in the university or in government.
Government’s quota system as affirmative action, which is what is called positive discrimination in policy studies, can only be fair in a country like South Africa where there was a deliberate policy to discriminate the blacks in the education system. That has not been the case in Malawi.
The solution, in my view, does not lie in government regulating the selections to the university but in it finding out what is wrong for Karonga and Chitipa to have more people on scales ‘inconsistent’ with their populations. Was nepotism at work in employing people or selecting students from Chitipa and Karonga? If nepotism was at work, what would stop people from Karonga and Chitipa from being employed even in the face of the quota system?
By the way, how do we classify someone as being from Karonga? Suppose, a Nyirenda from Karonga marries someone in Chikwawa, they have kids and they live in Blantyre. With time, the parents’ divorce and the wife takes custody of children and takes them to Chikwawa where they live until university selection time comes around.
Would the system accept the children (the Nyirenda’s) as being truly from Chikwawa? Obviously the system will be reluctant to accept a Nyirenda from Chikwawa. Anticipating those challenges, the children might change their name to Nyarenda.
Let’s not forget the past. MCP had a similar policy but people beat the system. People became like Bandas and Phiris and presented their district of origin as Kasungu or some other district when they had never set a foot there. They got selected. Some are still stuck with those names. Others dispensed of them.
By the way, did I hear President Mutharika was at one point known as Webster Thom? The president is on record to have said he changed his name because he had wanted to travel incognito for fear of persecution by the MCP secret operatives. What would prevent someone from changing his name to enter the university ‘incognito’?
So, just like that man who built a fortress for a house but found it wanting, the president’s policy might have good intentions (?) but people will still circumvent the system all the same. After all, what’s in a name?
There should be better ways of redistributing the national cake besides the quota system. The quota system is only a temporary measure meant to address a deep-seated problem. And identifying it is a bigger problem.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Crumbling pillars
Something is terribly wrong in the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and it’s not something you can blame on one man, no matter how powerful he may be. It’s something that has the characteristics of the chaos of 1992 and 1993 when Malawians fought for democracy, except that it lacks class in some aspects.
Last week Thursday, a dubiously named ‘MCP Taskforce on Leadership Change’ demanded the party’s leader John Tembo retire honourably or risk being dragged to court for the mysterious disappearance of K150 million from the party’s accounts.
The taskforce’s demand has rings of blackmail to it and the last time I checked, blackmail was deemed criminal in the laws of the country. And the way I know the typical African politician (whom Tembo typifies), he will just give them directions to hell.
But that is another matter. My thoughts lie elsewhere.
For starters, the taskforce’s name, for all its intentions, is a gross misnomer. It is not advocating for change in leadership per se but the departure of Tembo. ‘MCP Taskforce on Tembo’s Exit’ seems more like it.
Change in leadership would require the likes of Betson Majoni, Ishmael Chafukira and company to thrown in the towel and admit to the party’s rank and file that they, too, have failed them.
These people have been Tembo’s cheerleaders all along. During times when Tembo’s character was called to question, these are the people who leapt to his defence. Aren’t these the same people who sponsored the abdication of reason in the party when they endorsed Tembo as a presidential candidate, without him being subjected to a public scrutiny through a vote?
Worryingly for the party, these voices of discontent are not fighting from within its system but have taken their war into the media. And that’s a big problem. Either the party’s leadership (read Tembo) is so dictatorial that voices of dissent are not entertained, with the threat of death hanging over their heads should they attempt to do so or the people are just cowards, afraid to let their feelings known within the party.
But the problems in MCP won’t end with Tembo going away. Rather, it’s the thinking that must change — this thinking of doing everything by the four cornerstones. The four cornerstones served their purpose in the environment in which they were conceived but in democracy, they seem anachronistic.
They have bound people to a life of political servitude where internal dissent is equated to subversion. Free speech, on whose spirit our Republican Constitution is founded, is incongruous with blind loyalty, which is what the party encourages.
If, indeed, Tembo mismanaged K150 million, removing him won’t solve any problem. Another leader could exploit the same loopholes and leave the party in an even poorer state.
Besides, K150 million is no pocket money. The alarms bells should have started ringing a long time ago when even K1 of the party took a walk. Not now. How could one man be left to handle all that money? It smacks of carelessness on the party of the leaders — Chafukira, Majoni and the other members of the taskforce included.
There is no unity in the MCP; loyalty is gone; obedience and discipline seem like the toast of yesteryears. And that leaves the party vulnerable.
And if the pillars on which the house rests crumble, can it survive even a breeze?
Last week Thursday, a dubiously named ‘MCP Taskforce on Leadership Change’ demanded the party’s leader John Tembo retire honourably or risk being dragged to court for the mysterious disappearance of K150 million from the party’s accounts.
The taskforce’s demand has rings of blackmail to it and the last time I checked, blackmail was deemed criminal in the laws of the country. And the way I know the typical African politician (whom Tembo typifies), he will just give them directions to hell.
But that is another matter. My thoughts lie elsewhere.
For starters, the taskforce’s name, for all its intentions, is a gross misnomer. It is not advocating for change in leadership per se but the departure of Tembo. ‘MCP Taskforce on Tembo’s Exit’ seems more like it.
Change in leadership would require the likes of Betson Majoni, Ishmael Chafukira and company to thrown in the towel and admit to the party’s rank and file that they, too, have failed them.
These people have been Tembo’s cheerleaders all along. During times when Tembo’s character was called to question, these are the people who leapt to his defence. Aren’t these the same people who sponsored the abdication of reason in the party when they endorsed Tembo as a presidential candidate, without him being subjected to a public scrutiny through a vote?
Worryingly for the party, these voices of discontent are not fighting from within its system but have taken their war into the media. And that’s a big problem. Either the party’s leadership (read Tembo) is so dictatorial that voices of dissent are not entertained, with the threat of death hanging over their heads should they attempt to do so or the people are just cowards, afraid to let their feelings known within the party.
But the problems in MCP won’t end with Tembo going away. Rather, it’s the thinking that must change — this thinking of doing everything by the four cornerstones. The four cornerstones served their purpose in the environment in which they were conceived but in democracy, they seem anachronistic.
They have bound people to a life of political servitude where internal dissent is equated to subversion. Free speech, on whose spirit our Republican Constitution is founded, is incongruous with blind loyalty, which is what the party encourages.
If, indeed, Tembo mismanaged K150 million, removing him won’t solve any problem. Another leader could exploit the same loopholes and leave the party in an even poorer state.
Besides, K150 million is no pocket money. The alarms bells should have started ringing a long time ago when even K1 of the party took a walk. Not now. How could one man be left to handle all that money? It smacks of carelessness on the party of the leaders — Chafukira, Majoni and the other members of the taskforce included.
There is no unity in the MCP; loyalty is gone; obedience and discipline seem like the toast of yesteryears. And that leaves the party vulnerable.
And if the pillars on which the house rests crumble, can it survive even a breeze?
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Bullets vs Wanderers: The foul game we play in Malawi
Fam President Walter Nyamilandu last year accused Malawian football fans of the serious charge of treason for having fallen for, nay worshipping, the English Premier League at the expense of the local game.
The irony about his comments, however, is that a few weeks after he uttered those statements, (which, if the truth be told, were spot on), Nyamilandu was captured in one of the newspapers, proudly clad in a Manchester United jersey. If that is not high treason, I don’t know what else it could be.
But Nyamilandu was not spinning a piece of fiction, hypocritical as it may have been. There is a palpable obsession with the English game in Malawi, with bars packing to the rafters every weekend to watch the stars of English Premiership turn on the style.
In contrast, the stadiums in Malawi are not admirably filled, with the spaces in the terraces taken up by a few people, most of whom you suspect pitch up to satisfy a curiosity than the actual need to actually watch the match themselves.
Last Saturday, August 1, Kamuzu Stadium was well filled, even though not to capacity, and I don’t know how much this had to do with the fact that the English Premier League is off-season or that there was a special pull to the teams engaging in the Blantyre derby.
It was the match between age-old archrivals, Bullets FC and MTL Wanderers and to say I came out disappointed after 90 minutes would be trivialising my emotions.
Something is definitely wrong with the game and it has absolutely nothing to do with Malawians infatuation with the English game.
Based on history, Bullets and Wanderers are the best teams in the country by a mile, even though in recent years, Escom United, Silver Strikers, and lately, even Blackpool and Zomba United can stake a claim.
On the evidence of Saturday’s game, however, Bullets and Wanderers gave a poor advertisement of the local game with a lacklustre display of kick-and-rush football, more suited to village football than to the so-called cream of the game in the country.
Even the goal scored by Wanderers failed to add a sparkle to an otherwise intrepid game whose major highlight was not the nomads’ goal but the comical indecisiveness of referee Sam Mangasanja following the goal.
The sheer extent of poor officiation on Saturday was heartbreaking and if we needed evidence about the low levels to which the local game has sunk, that was provided in abundance on Saturday. And that, unfortunately, cannot be blamed on the English game!
A ball-boy, in his innocence, threw onto the pitch a ball just moments before (if you are a Bullets’ fanatic) or moments after (if you are a Nomads diehard) Gerald Chimbaka had put the match ball into the net. Somewhere in between, you suspect, lies the truth, which none of the two teams’ footballers and supporters is ready to accept.
Mangasanja had a mind to allow the Nomads’ goal but so overwhelmed was he by the enormity of his decision which courted a storm of protests from the People’s Team that he had a change of mind and reversed the goal.
But the Nomads would have none of it and the players made as if they were heading out of the pitch in protest at what they perceived as daylight robbery.
Meanwhile, as he oscillated between what should be and what should not have been, down came a high powered entourage from the VIP stand, led by none the mightier than Sulom President Henry Chibowa himself.
That, in my view, was another mistake in the chaotic administration of the local game. True, the tensions were high at this point but they weren’t volatile and it wasn’t a situation which required the intervention of the Sulom president.
By the way, do rules of the game in Malawi require the direct intervention of the Sulom president in the course of the game?
Where I sat, there was a healthy mixture of Bullets and Wanderers supporters who, above everything else, shared one passion: the rivalry between their teams but there was much camaraderie being passed around that, for a moment, one forgot these were sworn enemies. But the Chibowa entourage didn’t give much comfort to the Bullets supporters.
Bullets supporters, among others, have, without couching their emotions in cryptic language, expressed discomfort with the impartiality of both Fam and Sulom, which they perceive as blue.
Nyamilandu, they say, played for Wanderers and was the team’s general secretary at some time. He might have professed his passion for Bullets at some point but it didn’t give any gloss to the suspicions. Chibowa has a similar history with Nyamilandu, bar the declaration of support for the People’s Team.
Hence, any decision, irrespective of its legitimacy, made by Fam and Sulom, especially one that seems to tip in favour of Wanderers, has been viewed with a generous amount of suspicion.
With this background in mind, it was fait accompli for Bullets fans when Mangasanja changed his mind again, not, they suggested, by small measure prodded by the violent indignation with which the Nomads players had responded to his earlier change of mind and the intimidating presence of Chibowa and his entourage, who included match commissioner Charles Kafatia and National Referees Committee chair Moffat Champiti.
Curiously though, as all this drama was taking place, the fourth official was in ‘slumber-land’, not even getting nearer his colleagues in uniform to help them come to a consensus. By the way, what is duty of the fourth official? Is it to run around with the substitutions board?
Enough of the chaotic officiation. Back to the two teams.
None of the two teams, Bullets and Wanderers, has won the TNM Super League in the past two seasons — Escom United having won it in 2007 and Silver Strikers in 2008 — and on the evidence of Saturday’s match, the waiting by the so-called giants of the local game could be much longer.
None played like a champion in waiting. 11 Spanners of Thyolo and Mwanza Medicals could turn up a better game. And, perhaps, with the exception of Nomads’ defender Foster Namwera, none of the players played with any distinction, enough to make it into even Flames Team C.
There was nothing to remind the spectators of the cultured pace the game between two rivals threw up. On the contrary, there was desperation written all over the game, with the Nomads keen to put their recent troubles on the pitch behind them and the Bullets attempting to remind everyone that they are still very much around — albeit in diluted form.
The passing was uncharacteristic of the two teams, with the players resorting to aerial balls. If the players weren’t trying desperately to connect with the ball with their heads, then they made use of legs in karate style — making it look more like a karate fiesta than a football match between two of Malawi’s great teams.
And in a sign of unsettled nerves, within the first twenty minutes of the game, Wanderers mentor Yasin Osman had hauled off Idrissa Walesi for Rafik Mussa and his counterpart, Gilbert Chirwa, was not long in copying him, taking off Rodrick Douglass for Sankhani Nyirenda.
I would be wrong if I said the substitutions had any meaningful impacts, if not just a sign of desperation on the part of the coach — an act to be seen to be doing something than doing nothing at all.
And the Nomads were made to pay dearly for this when an injured Bernard Kalilani played on one leg for twenty minutes or so because the team had made all its substitutions too early.
With the English Premier League set to return in a few days time, last Saturday was an opportune moment for the local league to deliver a statement of intent but it failed spectacularly.
Malawians don’t want to watch the English game just to spite the local game. True, Malawi is far from reaching the heights of the English game but, the least we can do is try — which is everything Bullets and Wanderers, Malawi’s best teams, didn’t do on Saturday.
The irony about his comments, however, is that a few weeks after he uttered those statements, (which, if the truth be told, were spot on), Nyamilandu was captured in one of the newspapers, proudly clad in a Manchester United jersey. If that is not high treason, I don’t know what else it could be.
But Nyamilandu was not spinning a piece of fiction, hypocritical as it may have been. There is a palpable obsession with the English game in Malawi, with bars packing to the rafters every weekend to watch the stars of English Premiership turn on the style.
In contrast, the stadiums in Malawi are not admirably filled, with the spaces in the terraces taken up by a few people, most of whom you suspect pitch up to satisfy a curiosity than the actual need to actually watch the match themselves.
Last Saturday, August 1, Kamuzu Stadium was well filled, even though not to capacity, and I don’t know how much this had to do with the fact that the English Premier League is off-season or that there was a special pull to the teams engaging in the Blantyre derby.
It was the match between age-old archrivals, Bullets FC and MTL Wanderers and to say I came out disappointed after 90 minutes would be trivialising my emotions.
Something is definitely wrong with the game and it has absolutely nothing to do with Malawians infatuation with the English game.
Based on history, Bullets and Wanderers are the best teams in the country by a mile, even though in recent years, Escom United, Silver Strikers, and lately, even Blackpool and Zomba United can stake a claim.
On the evidence of Saturday’s game, however, Bullets and Wanderers gave a poor advertisement of the local game with a lacklustre display of kick-and-rush football, more suited to village football than to the so-called cream of the game in the country.
Even the goal scored by Wanderers failed to add a sparkle to an otherwise intrepid game whose major highlight was not the nomads’ goal but the comical indecisiveness of referee Sam Mangasanja following the goal.
The sheer extent of poor officiation on Saturday was heartbreaking and if we needed evidence about the low levels to which the local game has sunk, that was provided in abundance on Saturday. And that, unfortunately, cannot be blamed on the English game!
A ball-boy, in his innocence, threw onto the pitch a ball just moments before (if you are a Bullets’ fanatic) or moments after (if you are a Nomads diehard) Gerald Chimbaka had put the match ball into the net. Somewhere in between, you suspect, lies the truth, which none of the two teams’ footballers and supporters is ready to accept.
Mangasanja had a mind to allow the Nomads’ goal but so overwhelmed was he by the enormity of his decision which courted a storm of protests from the People’s Team that he had a change of mind and reversed the goal.
But the Nomads would have none of it and the players made as if they were heading out of the pitch in protest at what they perceived as daylight robbery.
Meanwhile, as he oscillated between what should be and what should not have been, down came a high powered entourage from the VIP stand, led by none the mightier than Sulom President Henry Chibowa himself.
That, in my view, was another mistake in the chaotic administration of the local game. True, the tensions were high at this point but they weren’t volatile and it wasn’t a situation which required the intervention of the Sulom president.
By the way, do rules of the game in Malawi require the direct intervention of the Sulom president in the course of the game?
Where I sat, there was a healthy mixture of Bullets and Wanderers supporters who, above everything else, shared one passion: the rivalry between their teams but there was much camaraderie being passed around that, for a moment, one forgot these were sworn enemies. But the Chibowa entourage didn’t give much comfort to the Bullets supporters.
Bullets supporters, among others, have, without couching their emotions in cryptic language, expressed discomfort with the impartiality of both Fam and Sulom, which they perceive as blue.
Nyamilandu, they say, played for Wanderers and was the team’s general secretary at some time. He might have professed his passion for Bullets at some point but it didn’t give any gloss to the suspicions. Chibowa has a similar history with Nyamilandu, bar the declaration of support for the People’s Team.
Hence, any decision, irrespective of its legitimacy, made by Fam and Sulom, especially one that seems to tip in favour of Wanderers, has been viewed with a generous amount of suspicion.
With this background in mind, it was fait accompli for Bullets fans when Mangasanja changed his mind again, not, they suggested, by small measure prodded by the violent indignation with which the Nomads players had responded to his earlier change of mind and the intimidating presence of Chibowa and his entourage, who included match commissioner Charles Kafatia and National Referees Committee chair Moffat Champiti.
Curiously though, as all this drama was taking place, the fourth official was in ‘slumber-land’, not even getting nearer his colleagues in uniform to help them come to a consensus. By the way, what is duty of the fourth official? Is it to run around with the substitutions board?
Enough of the chaotic officiation. Back to the two teams.
None of the two teams, Bullets and Wanderers, has won the TNM Super League in the past two seasons — Escom United having won it in 2007 and Silver Strikers in 2008 — and on the evidence of Saturday’s match, the waiting by the so-called giants of the local game could be much longer.
None played like a champion in waiting. 11 Spanners of Thyolo and Mwanza Medicals could turn up a better game. And, perhaps, with the exception of Nomads’ defender Foster Namwera, none of the players played with any distinction, enough to make it into even Flames Team C.
There was nothing to remind the spectators of the cultured pace the game between two rivals threw up. On the contrary, there was desperation written all over the game, with the Nomads keen to put their recent troubles on the pitch behind them and the Bullets attempting to remind everyone that they are still very much around — albeit in diluted form.
The passing was uncharacteristic of the two teams, with the players resorting to aerial balls. If the players weren’t trying desperately to connect with the ball with their heads, then they made use of legs in karate style — making it look more like a karate fiesta than a football match between two of Malawi’s great teams.
And in a sign of unsettled nerves, within the first twenty minutes of the game, Wanderers mentor Yasin Osman had hauled off Idrissa Walesi for Rafik Mussa and his counterpart, Gilbert Chirwa, was not long in copying him, taking off Rodrick Douglass for Sankhani Nyirenda.
I would be wrong if I said the substitutions had any meaningful impacts, if not just a sign of desperation on the part of the coach — an act to be seen to be doing something than doing nothing at all.
And the Nomads were made to pay dearly for this when an injured Bernard Kalilani played on one leg for twenty minutes or so because the team had made all its substitutions too early.
With the English Premier League set to return in a few days time, last Saturday was an opportune moment for the local league to deliver a statement of intent but it failed spectacularly.
Malawians don’t want to watch the English game just to spite the local game. True, Malawi is far from reaching the heights of the English game but, the least we can do is try — which is everything Bullets and Wanderers, Malawi’s best teams, didn’t do on Saturday.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
A season of madness
One of the most creative — I wish I could call it brilliant — ideas government came up with to commemorate this year’s Independence Day on Monday was to come with a list of 14 individuals who were honoured for one achievement or the other.
Why 14 and not a hundred or a thousand, I have no idea. Why it was conceived in the first place, I absolutely have no clue. But it’s not a bad idea in itself. There are a lot of people out there whose contributions most of the times go unappreciated and if this list was created to fix that anomaly, I have no reason to complain.
But I have a feeling that the honours list, incomplete as it, is not too fair and has honoured some individuals for being at the right place, at the right time. Does anyone, for instance, see any achievement in being the first woman to be in Dr. Kamuzu Banda’s cabinet? I have no idea what her citation was but if it was for the fact that she was the first woman to be in cabinet, it was no achievement—just as there is none in Joyce Banda being vice president of Malawi.
She was elected on the same ticket as President Bingu wa Mutharika, yes, but what is her contribution to that result? Is it quantifiable? Would Bingu have lost had he partnered with someone else?
Take Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf; she has everything to celebrate about. She won it as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — she didn’t ride on the back of another candidate as a running-mate.
Don’t get me wrong about the first woman cabinet minister; she was surrounded by all these men — chauvinistic we may add — but during her time, did she do anything worth remembering, worth celebrating? Did she help the cause for the upliftment of women? Perhaps, I may be too young or too naive or both to appreciate her role.
But, of course, my point was neither about who missed the boat, for you can be sure there are thousands of people who were missed on that list of 14, nor was it about why X was honoured where his misdeeds and achievements are just as prominent as Y.
On the contrary, I was more amused by the fancy title which some joke of a committee decided to confer on President Bingu wa Mutharika: The Most Excellent Grand Commander.
It appears we are in that season and I loathe to think these are the signs of the times. Just a few weeks ago, some parliamentarian conferred on our good old president the novel title of ‘Doctor of Development’; yet another one rehashed the Mchikumbe No. 1 title (a preserve, we thought rather naively, of Dr. Banda) and threw it in the direction of Mutharika as well. He is also Ngwazi, Mose wa Lero, Mthesa Njala...
We are in that period when we are falling over ourselves to spoil the president with titles for doing what he ought to do. If, as a president, he can’t guide the nation to prosperity, then who can? If parents provides for their children, do they deserve more gratitude than what are naturally due to them?
It is a nasty trait, this ‘titlemania’, especially in dictatorial regimes and I shudder to think we are swimming headlong into that direction — just a paltry fifteen years after emerging from one.
At the pace we are going, it won’t be long before some crackpot suggests that we have a third term (or others like to say it, a sad term) bill. With the numbers the DPP has in Parliament and the zeal with which some people would like to please Bingu, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
This year’s celebrations were about Malawi’s 45 years of independence. What we got were heaps of praises of President Mutharika’s achievements in the last five years! What happened during the other 40 years???
Why 14 and not a hundred or a thousand, I have no idea. Why it was conceived in the first place, I absolutely have no clue. But it’s not a bad idea in itself. There are a lot of people out there whose contributions most of the times go unappreciated and if this list was created to fix that anomaly, I have no reason to complain.
But I have a feeling that the honours list, incomplete as it, is not too fair and has honoured some individuals for being at the right place, at the right time. Does anyone, for instance, see any achievement in being the first woman to be in Dr. Kamuzu Banda’s cabinet? I have no idea what her citation was but if it was for the fact that she was the first woman to be in cabinet, it was no achievement—just as there is none in Joyce Banda being vice president of Malawi.
She was elected on the same ticket as President Bingu wa Mutharika, yes, but what is her contribution to that result? Is it quantifiable? Would Bingu have lost had he partnered with someone else?
Take Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf; she has everything to celebrate about. She won it as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — she didn’t ride on the back of another candidate as a running-mate.
Don’t get me wrong about the first woman cabinet minister; she was surrounded by all these men — chauvinistic we may add — but during her time, did she do anything worth remembering, worth celebrating? Did she help the cause for the upliftment of women? Perhaps, I may be too young or too naive or both to appreciate her role.
But, of course, my point was neither about who missed the boat, for you can be sure there are thousands of people who were missed on that list of 14, nor was it about why X was honoured where his misdeeds and achievements are just as prominent as Y.
On the contrary, I was more amused by the fancy title which some joke of a committee decided to confer on President Bingu wa Mutharika: The Most Excellent Grand Commander.
It appears we are in that season and I loathe to think these are the signs of the times. Just a few weeks ago, some parliamentarian conferred on our good old president the novel title of ‘Doctor of Development’; yet another one rehashed the Mchikumbe No. 1 title (a preserve, we thought rather naively, of Dr. Banda) and threw it in the direction of Mutharika as well. He is also Ngwazi, Mose wa Lero, Mthesa Njala...
We are in that period when we are falling over ourselves to spoil the president with titles for doing what he ought to do. If, as a president, he can’t guide the nation to prosperity, then who can? If parents provides for their children, do they deserve more gratitude than what are naturally due to them?
It is a nasty trait, this ‘titlemania’, especially in dictatorial regimes and I shudder to think we are swimming headlong into that direction — just a paltry fifteen years after emerging from one.
At the pace we are going, it won’t be long before some crackpot suggests that we have a third term (or others like to say it, a sad term) bill. With the numbers the DPP has in Parliament and the zeal with which some people would like to please Bingu, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
This year’s celebrations were about Malawi’s 45 years of independence. What we got were heaps of praises of President Mutharika’s achievements in the last five years! What happened during the other 40 years???
Thursday, July 9, 2009
An independent thought
We celebrated, or rather, we commemorated Independence Day on Monday, July 6. But is it enough to celebrate independence because it is a milestone or because we feel contented to have achieved something? What, I wonder, have we achieved worth celebrating about? Is freeing ourselves from the shackles of colonialism and imperialism enough cause for celebrating?
All that we managed to do was to supplant white colonialists with black ones, our own, whose only major positive point is that they can speak the language without necessarily speaking our language.
Just recently, we (or rather, government) celebrated ourselves senseless for coming second to Qatar in terms of economic growth in the world, yet the level of poverty among our people falls short of being outright immoral — 45 years after independence.
It is fashionable, more especially in the recent past, for people (on second thoughts, government as well) to survive by handouts. If that was not vindication that our people are far from independent — economically or otherwise — then I don’t know what will.
In football, our so-called national sport, for instance, about two years before independence, on October 15, 1962, we suffered the indignity of loosing 12-0 at the Rangeley Stadium — now Kamuzu Stadium — to Ghana. Yeah, Ghana might have been (and still are) the heavyweights of the game on the continent, but about 47 years on, we are still clueless about what to with the game.
Malawi remains something still of an enigma (a fact which some quarters, no less administrators of the game, celebrate gleefully). The Flames are a team that can embarrass continental champion in Egypt and a few months later, they are humiliated by the lesser fancied Burkina Faso.
How can we celebrate independence to its fullest when our electricity supplier, Escom, still functions with efficiency of a disaffected pre-colonial civil service? If the electricity is not tinkered by a notorious monkey, then plain insolence and cluelessness by someone who is supposed to know befuddles the system altogether.
As we celebrated our independence, some parts of the country were in darkness because some system is up to its habit of breaking down.
It beats me when we claim we are independent when the water system we are using in the cities remains pre-colonial. We have allowed ourselves to witness decay before our eyes and celebrate it.
Yes, the opposition has been blamed for shooting down this loan and that loan that could have rectified the water system, the electricity supply and all that load of tosh. Oh yeah, but that was only in the last five years; we have had 40 years behind us during which time the best things we did for ourselves was to sing praises for our leaders who only capitalised on the historical inevitabilities.
We have leaders, who, 45 years after independence, can’t entertain diversity of thought; leaders who don’t know how to walk away from their failures.
Some independence for sure!
All that we managed to do was to supplant white colonialists with black ones, our own, whose only major positive point is that they can speak the language without necessarily speaking our language.
Just recently, we (or rather, government) celebrated ourselves senseless for coming second to Qatar in terms of economic growth in the world, yet the level of poverty among our people falls short of being outright immoral — 45 years after independence.
It is fashionable, more especially in the recent past, for people (on second thoughts, government as well) to survive by handouts. If that was not vindication that our people are far from independent — economically or otherwise — then I don’t know what will.
In football, our so-called national sport, for instance, about two years before independence, on October 15, 1962, we suffered the indignity of loosing 12-0 at the Rangeley Stadium — now Kamuzu Stadium — to Ghana. Yeah, Ghana might have been (and still are) the heavyweights of the game on the continent, but about 47 years on, we are still clueless about what to with the game.
Malawi remains something still of an enigma (a fact which some quarters, no less administrators of the game, celebrate gleefully). The Flames are a team that can embarrass continental champion in Egypt and a few months later, they are humiliated by the lesser fancied Burkina Faso.
How can we celebrate independence to its fullest when our electricity supplier, Escom, still functions with efficiency of a disaffected pre-colonial civil service? If the electricity is not tinkered by a notorious monkey, then plain insolence and cluelessness by someone who is supposed to know befuddles the system altogether.
As we celebrated our independence, some parts of the country were in darkness because some system is up to its habit of breaking down.
It beats me when we claim we are independent when the water system we are using in the cities remains pre-colonial. We have allowed ourselves to witness decay before our eyes and celebrate it.
Yes, the opposition has been blamed for shooting down this loan and that loan that could have rectified the water system, the electricity supply and all that load of tosh. Oh yeah, but that was only in the last five years; we have had 40 years behind us during which time the best things we did for ourselves was to sing praises for our leaders who only capitalised on the historical inevitabilities.
We have leaders, who, 45 years after independence, can’t entertain diversity of thought; leaders who don’t know how to walk away from their failures.
Some independence for sure!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Take them on, Cama
US President Barack Obama has, without doubt, inspired many a soul worldwide. From his phenomenal rise from obscurity to becoming the president of the world's most powerful nation, Obama has never been short of admirers and worshippers alike.
You can almost see the mirror image of Obama in independent presidential candidate, James Nyondo. Of course, he may not ooze similar charisma but it is hard to ignore how Nyondo has tried to model himself after the US president.
And if the truth be told, Nyondo has challenged the established political order and bar any mishap, he should give the two main presidential challengers, Bingu wa Mutharika and John Tembo, a good run for their money. The DPP government is not blind to the damage Nyondo, a spoilsport of sorts, can cause; hence, government will go to any length, be it deporting his supporters or investigating him for financial impropriety, if only to clip his wings.
Then there those who have invited Obama into their homes by naming their children after the American president.
But that is not all: the Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec), among other uncreative Malawian organisations, has stolen Obama's slogan, 'Yes, we can', as its clarion call to voters for peaceful May 19 elections.
In February, Mec launched an elections' initiative where it made minibus stickers with the phrase 'Be proud of Malawi – PEACEFUL ELECTIONS – YES, WE CAN!' Sadly, I haven't seen much of those stickers lately. I'm not so sure if that is telling disaffection with Mec and the entire electoral process or that talk of peaceful elections is a sham.
It was a daring attempt by Mec, I must confess, for them to borrow that slogan that was used to good effect by Obama. It's cool to say 'Yes, we can', but can we? For all Mec's publicised inefficiencies and gaffes, I'm looking forward to what exactly 'yes, we can' refers to. Is it 'Yes, we can goof' or 'Yes, we can have a peaceful' election? Only May 19 will tell whether it was an inspired phrase-borrowing or a doomed ambitious exercise.
The 'Yes, we can' slogan is Mec's vision statement in the elections and a vision statement, as we know it, expresses an element of ambition. We have the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) with the much maligned "Power all day, everyday" as its slogan.
It is an embarrassing slogan, to say the least, given that as I was writing this very short piece, power went out twice (and that's no exaggeration) and that highly tampered with my line of thought. Escom, as we know, is not reputed for giving its consumers power all day, everyday. On the contrary, it bears about it the embarrassing tag of a perennial crybaby about environmental degradation — a thing that is embarrassing as it is irritating.
We all know the environment is taking a knock at a faster rate than it can be corrected. That's well documented and we need no two-penny idiot to intone the same messages into our brains.
We know a depleted forestry reserve does not sit well, at least at the moment, with Escom's avowed intention to supply us with electricity 24/7.
But we also know that Escom's employees are not paid to be whining about an endangered environment all day, everyday.
We know what they are supposed to do — which is to come up with ways of sealing their environmental-degration-whining mouths once and for all by coming with lasting solutions that would make true of the slogan, "Power all day, everyday".
As it is now, Consumer Association of Malawi has every right to sue Escom for misleading its customers. But big and crucial as Escom may be, it is not the only one that is cheating consumers with empty and false slogans. There are too many of them around and they can be identified by the slogan which are lifted off somewhere and cruelly adapted.
The road to Malawi Elections 2009: Real issues pushed to the backyard
| Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. It has one of the highest HIV/Aids prevalence rates (at 12 percent); its economy is heavily agro-based, which puts it at the mercy of natural as well as economic disasters; it faces chronic hunger; infant mortality rates are staggering; poverty levels are scaring, with over half the population living below the poverty line. Yet, these are not the issues that have dominated the political speeches by parliamentary and presidential candidates ahead of the Malawi's General Elections to be held on May 19. Name-calling, ludicrous claims of murder, promises of purchase of coffins once elected, court cases and political alliances of conveniences have sprung to the foreground, relegating the more pertinent matters to the background. The 2009 elections are shaping up to look more like personality battles and not matters of substance. Looming large over all issues was the decision by the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to bar Bakili Muluzi, chairman of the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) from standing as president of the country having already served his two terms in office from 1994 to 2004. It was a contentious decision which caught the UDF by surprise even though it had long been suggested the Republican Constitution barred Mr Muluzi from having another go at the presidency. The UDF is contesting the decision in court. But as the party awaits the determination of the courts, it has entered into a 'presidential alliance' with the hitherto sworn enemy, the Malawi Congress Party — led by maverick politician John Tembo — which had the biggest number of seats in the recently dissolved Parliament. The stated aim of the alliance is to oust President Bingu wa Mutharika. Muluzi has a bone to chew with President Mutharika for dumping the UDF in 2005. The charismatic Muluzi invested his pride and finances and sacrificed long-standing friendships with other party members to ensure President Mutharika, a rank outsider, made it to the presidency. But Mutharika walked out on the party to found the Democratic Progressive Party, for which he is its torchbearer in the May 19 polls. Tembo, on the other hand, has scores to settle with President Mutharika after it emerged that the 2004 polls were heavily manipulated in the president's favour at Tembo's expense. A court challenge on the 2004 presidential elections crumbled dramatically after Mgwirizano Coalition, whose president Gwanda Chakuamba came third in polls, pulled out of the case. It is early days yet for the MCP/UDF alliance but the signs are ominous for the sustainability of the political marriage in which the parties seem to have agreed to disagree. Curiously for the alliance, the two parties earlier announced that each party would promote their manifestos, which on many crucial points are as similar as day and night. But buried deep behind mundane matters of African politics are issues of food security, education and economic sustainability. For instance, while the MCP would like to promote a universal fertiliser subsidy to stimulate a green revolution in Malawi, the UDF has structured its agricultural policies in such a way that vulnerable groups of society — the poor, the aged, orphans and others — would have free access to fertiliser. The DPP, on the other hand, favours a targeted agricultural inputs programme, where, for example, vulnerable groups would be issued coupons to buy fertiliser at K500 (about US$3.50). On education, while the UDF intends to introduce free secondary school education, having implemented a free primary school education with a worrying, if not chaotic, degree of success in 1994, its prospective partner in government, the MCP, ironically, plans to "clean up" the education system which has been on its knees for a long worrying period. The free primary school education introduced by the UDF months after its election in first multiparty elections in 1994 scored high on enrolment. Pupils, who would otherwise previously have not gone to school, flocked to the classrooms en masse. But the schools were soon overwhelmed and run short of teaching and learning equipment and the teachers were barely enough to manage the deluge of pupils. It was a decision whose effects are still reverberating to date, hence MCP's vow to clean up a messy education system that remains high on quantity but admittedly low on quality. But the fate of MCP/UDF Alliance's stated ambition of taking over government does not lie in how they would harmonise their policies once elected into power. Instead it comes in the form of MEC which has come in for heavy criticism from various quarters — ranging from opposition parties to civic society and donors. Headed by respected Justice of Appeal Anastazia Msosa, who successfully conducted Malawi's first multiparty polls in 1994, MEC had its integrity compromised and impartiality questioned in 2007 when President Mutharika appointed commissioners to the body without consulting the opposition parties as laid down in the laws. It came, therefore, as no surprise when the UDF accused the electoral body of being an appendage of the DPP after President Mutharika's running mate, Joyce Banda, said at a political rally, and before MEC had finalised scrutinising the nomination papers, that Muluzi would not stand in the elections. Barely a week later, Muluzi was barred by MEC. The opposition also view MEC as a lame duck that has failed to rein in President Mutharika whom they accuse of propagating hate speeches, especially after one in which he accused Tembo of murdering his father. The opposition argued that Mutharika's conduct was contrary to Section 61 (1) of the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections Act (PPE) which reads: "notwithstanding guarantees of freedom of expression, information and assembly, no person shall, in campaigning, use language which is inflammatory, defamatory, insulting, or which constitutes incitement to public disorder, insurrection, hate, violence or war." "We will lodge an official complaint to MEC. Mutharika should not abuse his presidential immunity because he shall one day be answerable. Tembo never issued any threats to anyone. All he said was, those in power must enjoy it while it lasts because they will never get that chance once the opposition rules," MCP spokesperson Ishmael Chafukira told The Nation of March 20, 2009. As if that is not enough, the opposition and civil society have accused MEC of treating state-controlled Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) with kids' gloves as it broadcasts propaganda against the opposition and has given the others parties no time to be heard on the radio, contrary to the PPE Section 63. But that is not the only thing MEC has come in for heavy scrutiny. When the voters' roll was opened to the public for verification early April, it was noted that that it had glaring mistakes which cast doubts over the success of the elections. According to one of the country's dailies, The Daily Times, voters largely shunned the verification exercise while those that did pitch up faced problems ranging from wrong information being attached to wrong voters to untrained clerks. MEC Public Relations Officer Fergus Lipenga admitted that the clerks had not been given an induction course owing to lack of funds. "Apart from that, MEC also gave each one of the clerks a manual that explained how to handle different scenarios pertaining to the voters' register," explained Lipenga in the paper's edition of April 7. MEC employed more people to "clean" up the system and promised to re-open the verification exercise but with time at a premium, it remains to be seen how far MEC can go in cleaning up its act. With MBC closed to the opposition, other radios, mostly with limited reach, have given opposition parties room for comfort. However, according to monitoring reports published in the local media, other than DPP, MCP and UDF, the other parties have had limited privileges in reaching out to the critical masses. But it is the innovation of the only independent presidential candidate James Nyondo that has made the other candidates — and their parties — to look beyond the radio and the press to embrace the new media. Nyondo set up websites (servantsofthenation.com and jamesnyondo09.com) to complement his campaign on the ground and he also made his presence felt on social networking, facebook.com. It was a first for a presidential candidate. Soon, Muluzi, MCP and the DPP were to follow. But Malawi's connectivity to information super-highway remains patchy and not many would be willing to bet on the effect the websites would have on people's decisions on May 19. There are sixteen parties participating in the polls but only five of them — MCP (led by Tembo), DPP (Mutharika), National Rainbow Coalition (Loveness Gondwe), People's Transformation Party (Kamuzu Chibambo), Republican Party (Stanley Masauli) and the Alliance for Democracy (Dindi Gowa Nyasulu) — are fielding presidential candidates. However, the real race for the presidency seems to be reserved for Tembo and President Mutharika, with Nyondo viewed as the spoiler. The article was first published at http://www.africanelections.org/malawi/news/page.php?news=3009 |
Malawi elections: My personal view
It is that time of the year again. A time for forced smiles, a time for people shouting themselves hoarse and senseless; a time when the nation get awash with scandals about who shouldn't be seen with whose spouse; it's also the time for some of the most colourful language; it's the time when the riot of colours can spin your head. This is Malawi's elections time.
I like this period, if only for gauging the utter emptness of speeches, the acts of desperation from politicians fearful of losing what they had claimed as their own for life for five years.
I like this period, if only for gauging the utter emptness of speeches, the acts of desperation from politicians fearful of losing what they had claimed as their own for life for five years.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
A nation in ‘crisis’?
So, Malawi is in a crisis? Well, that’s the greatest joke I have heard in a long time. So far, I haven’t seen anything resembling a crisis that would invite the attention of the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc), let alone that of the continental body, African Union (AU).
What has caused the so-called crisis? Does the Anti-Corruption Bureau dragging former president Bakili Muluzi to court to answer for his alleged financial misadventures in the decade gone constitute a crisis by anybody’s definition — Malawi’s, AU’s or anyone’s? A storm in a teacup aptly defines that.
For some of us, we take it as an opportunity for Muluzi to redeem his image if he is as innocent as he claims he is or an avenue for government to vindicate itself that Muluzi indeed diverted public funds into his account. That, unfortunately, is not and shouldn’t be a crisis.
We take it that it is the law that is being tested here.
So, where is the crisis that has unnerved the AU? Does the crack that has supposedly emerged in the working alliance between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Progressive People’s Movement (PPM) constitute the beginning of crisis, a national crisis at that, that would require anybody’s intervention?
Those two parties, as far as we can tell, have chosen to agree to disagree on parliamentary candidates and that is not a crisis by any shade.
Former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki was ousted in a palace coup and if the AU was looking for anything resembling a crisis, that was one but some of us were stunned by the loudness of AU’s silence.
Was it a tacit approval of the coup — which wouldn’t be surprising given the background of the AU, which has welcomed and encouraged quite a number of dictators who assumed their power through undemocratic means?
When South Africa’s African National Congress split acrimoniously recently, that was a crisis, but I suppose not the sort that they wouldn’t find a solution within their own country.
If the AU wanted to intervene in a real crisis, former Mozambican president Joacquim Chissano shouldn’t have been in Lilongwe bringing together MCP’s John Tembo, UDF’s Bakili Muluzi and President Bingu wa Mutharika. No!
There was one in Blantyre, in Manja — about 400 kilometres away — where the congregation of Zambezi Evangelical Church (Zec) decided to sort out their differences not in the manner prescribed by Jesus Christ. That was the crisis!
If the church resorts to pangas as the means by which they decide to settle matters, that is the crisis.
Our leaders will not desist from name-calling simply because the AU intervened. Name-calling, as we understand, goes with the territory and I wouldn’t be surprised if, hours after the so-called crisis talks, bad blood returns among the three. Now, that won’t be a crisis; it will be our politics as usual!
What has caused the so-called crisis? Does the Anti-Corruption Bureau dragging former president Bakili Muluzi to court to answer for his alleged financial misadventures in the decade gone constitute a crisis by anybody’s definition — Malawi’s, AU’s or anyone’s? A storm in a teacup aptly defines that.
For some of us, we take it as an opportunity for Muluzi to redeem his image if he is as innocent as he claims he is or an avenue for government to vindicate itself that Muluzi indeed diverted public funds into his account. That, unfortunately, is not and shouldn’t be a crisis.
We take it that it is the law that is being tested here.
So, where is the crisis that has unnerved the AU? Does the crack that has supposedly emerged in the working alliance between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Progressive People’s Movement (PPM) constitute the beginning of crisis, a national crisis at that, that would require anybody’s intervention?
Those two parties, as far as we can tell, have chosen to agree to disagree on parliamentary candidates and that is not a crisis by any shade.
Former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki was ousted in a palace coup and if the AU was looking for anything resembling a crisis, that was one but some of us were stunned by the loudness of AU’s silence.
Was it a tacit approval of the coup — which wouldn’t be surprising given the background of the AU, which has welcomed and encouraged quite a number of dictators who assumed their power through undemocratic means?
When South Africa’s African National Congress split acrimoniously recently, that was a crisis, but I suppose not the sort that they wouldn’t find a solution within their own country.
If the AU wanted to intervene in a real crisis, former Mozambican president Joacquim Chissano shouldn’t have been in Lilongwe bringing together MCP’s John Tembo, UDF’s Bakili Muluzi and President Bingu wa Mutharika. No!
There was one in Blantyre, in Manja — about 400 kilometres away — where the congregation of Zambezi Evangelical Church (Zec) decided to sort out their differences not in the manner prescribed by Jesus Christ. That was the crisis!
If the church resorts to pangas as the means by which they decide to settle matters, that is the crisis.
Our leaders will not desist from name-calling simply because the AU intervened. Name-calling, as we understand, goes with the territory and I wouldn’t be surprised if, hours after the so-called crisis talks, bad blood returns among the three. Now, that won’t be a crisis; it will be our politics as usual!
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
I’ll (not) protect Muluzi
Why was it that I wasn’t surprised when John Tembo, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) leader and its presidential candidate in the May 19 polls, vowed to protect United Democratic Front (UDF) troubled chairman Bakili Muluzi from the courts should the MCP make it to the State House?
It is because it all began in Zambia — from which we seem to copy a handful of unpleasant ideas — when Levi Mwanawasa (may his soul rest in peace) was on to his immediate predecessor, Frederick Chiluba, for a raft of corruption cases, some of which the diminutive former leader is still answering in the courts, way after the death of the instigator, Mwanawasa.
But, Mwanawasa was a bad example, so implied a campaigning Bingu wa Mutharika, then a ‘two-minute’ man under the wings of Muluzi in 2004 in Dedza. Instead, Mutharika advocated for harmony between former and current presidents (something we seem not to be very good at) and he pledged to protect Muluzi from prosecution once elected.
Muluzi, unwisely in hindsight, spurned the offer, arguing he had nothing to hide, had committed no crime warranting protection from anyone. Without implying anything, Muluzi should be ruing his unkind reaction to the free offer.
Now Tembo makes the same vow and so far, perhaps wisely, Muluzi has resisted the temptation to decline that offer. With the way Mutharika’s administration has been on his case, Muluzi should have learnt his lesson.
But, then, Tembo’s statement, just like Mutharika’s before him, bears with it a bagful of assumptions, none of which makes for pleasant reading, at least for a voter who aspires for equality of all before the law.
While Mutharika was looking to Zambia for inspiration, as it were, in making that vow, Tembo’s statement assumes that Mutharika’s government is persecuting — and not prosecuting — Muluzi by the many court cases thrown his way.
But we all live under the assumption that our courts are independent from any political influence, hence we expect them to exercise due diligence by discharging him. In that scenario, Muluzi will not need protection from anybody — be it Mutharika, Tembo or even Amunandife Mkumba.
More worryingly, though, Tembo’s statement assumes that Muluzi is very guilty (for which crimes, we don’t know) but for the sake of a cheap vote, Tembo will be prepared to turn a blind eye to Muluzi’s transgressions. If that is the case, Tembo will make for a bad president, someone who has promised to interfere in domains certainly not his and celebrate with the guilty.
Again, people find themselves in the dock for a variety of reasons, some of which may be beyond the protection of someone as powerful as the president himself. For instance, is Tembo is insinuating that even as a citizen, if I decide to sue Muluzi (as Zain and Maulidi Garage have done), will Tembo come forward and block me from claiming what is rightly mine?
Or suppose Muluzi kills someone (and this is just a remote supposition) and all evidence suggests he’s guilty of murder and deserves a life sentence, will Tembo still shield him from the courts, when some people find themselves jailed for five years for nicking a bicycle?
No, JZU, we can understand your desperation to reach out to the reluctant UDF supporters in what should be your last gong, but absurd promises should not be part of the package.
If I were Muluzi, I would be very careful. The last time someone promised him something similarly, it turned out disastrously.
It is because it all began in Zambia — from which we seem to copy a handful of unpleasant ideas — when Levi Mwanawasa (may his soul rest in peace) was on to his immediate predecessor, Frederick Chiluba, for a raft of corruption cases, some of which the diminutive former leader is still answering in the courts, way after the death of the instigator, Mwanawasa.
But, Mwanawasa was a bad example, so implied a campaigning Bingu wa Mutharika, then a ‘two-minute’ man under the wings of Muluzi in 2004 in Dedza. Instead, Mutharika advocated for harmony between former and current presidents (something we seem not to be very good at) and he pledged to protect Muluzi from prosecution once elected.
Muluzi, unwisely in hindsight, spurned the offer, arguing he had nothing to hide, had committed no crime warranting protection from anyone. Without implying anything, Muluzi should be ruing his unkind reaction to the free offer.
Now Tembo makes the same vow and so far, perhaps wisely, Muluzi has resisted the temptation to decline that offer. With the way Mutharika’s administration has been on his case, Muluzi should have learnt his lesson.
But, then, Tembo’s statement, just like Mutharika’s before him, bears with it a bagful of assumptions, none of which makes for pleasant reading, at least for a voter who aspires for equality of all before the law.
While Mutharika was looking to Zambia for inspiration, as it were, in making that vow, Tembo’s statement assumes that Mutharika’s government is persecuting — and not prosecuting — Muluzi by the many court cases thrown his way.
But we all live under the assumption that our courts are independent from any political influence, hence we expect them to exercise due diligence by discharging him. In that scenario, Muluzi will not need protection from anybody — be it Mutharika, Tembo or even Amunandife Mkumba.
More worryingly, though, Tembo’s statement assumes that Muluzi is very guilty (for which crimes, we don’t know) but for the sake of a cheap vote, Tembo will be prepared to turn a blind eye to Muluzi’s transgressions. If that is the case, Tembo will make for a bad president, someone who has promised to interfere in domains certainly not his and celebrate with the guilty.
Again, people find themselves in the dock for a variety of reasons, some of which may be beyond the protection of someone as powerful as the president himself. For instance, is Tembo is insinuating that even as a citizen, if I decide to sue Muluzi (as Zain and Maulidi Garage have done), will Tembo come forward and block me from claiming what is rightly mine?
Or suppose Muluzi kills someone (and this is just a remote supposition) and all evidence suggests he’s guilty of murder and deserves a life sentence, will Tembo still shield him from the courts, when some people find themselves jailed for five years for nicking a bicycle?
No, JZU, we can understand your desperation to reach out to the reluctant UDF supporters in what should be your last gong, but absurd promises should not be part of the package.
If I were Muluzi, I would be very careful. The last time someone promised him something similarly, it turned out disastrously.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Hits and misses in running-mates
We now know, at last, which presidential aspirant has goofed mildly, who has goofed honourably and who has goofed beyond redemption in their choice of a running-mate. In my opinion, arrogant as some may deem it, none of the presidential candidates has it right.
In fact, some of the presidential candidates don’t even deserve to run for a parliamentary seat, let alone drool for the presidency. So, why should they pick running-mates in the first place? But the vanity of a politician knows no limits, so it would be imprudent to hope they would assess their shortcomings and be contented with what they can afford.
Nevertheless, a running-mate stands between guaranteeing the keys to the State House and a rush to the courts to dispute polls’ results. So, who pulled off a perfect choice?
Bingu wa Mutharika and Joyce Banda
When it became known President Mutharika had fallen for — forgive the expression — Joyce Banda, his Foreign Affairs Minister, and not the other Banda in Henry Chimunthu as it was widely speculated, the question people asked was: Why? Why, indeed!
Joyce Banda is not a bad candidate — far from it. Give me Joyce Banda any day and some other running-mate like, say, Kamlepo Kalua and Amunandife Nkumba, I’ll sing ‘Amazing Grace’ at its loudest pitch.
But, I’m not sure what Banda’s appointment was intended to do. Target the female vote (gender activists take note)? But, as US presidential candidate John McCain found out last year when he picked Sarah Palin for his running-mate, picking a woman if you want to target female vote could be an ill-conceived idea.
Or was Banda’s appointment affirmative action at its best? Or did President Mutharika scheme to annoy others who had been pushing and shoving for the post (in which case, he should brace himself for tough times ahead)? Or perhaps, he wanted to target (and hoping he would split) the Yao vote?
Whatever his motive was, Mutharika made a monumental blunder, perhaps only bettered by Loveness Gondwe and equalled by Stanley Masauli.
Verdict: I wish I could say it was a hit, but...
John Tembo and Brown Mpinganjira
An impossible combination rather than a perfect political marriage made in heaven. Headstrong characters in the 2004, each of whom assumed they could win the elections alone (when everybody else knew they wouldn’t), their egos, especially Mpinganjira’s, seem to have taken so much battering that they are willing to experiment with what should have been in 2004.
Mpinganjira, as president of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a motley crew of disaffected United Democratic Front (UDF) members, is one thing; BJ as an itinerant politician, who failed to strike it on his own and crawled back to the UDF, only to jump ship — again — years later is another.
The former was, forgive the cliché, a force to reckon with; the latter is a political gamble. BJ may still command the respect in the so-called Lomwe belt (which, I suspect, is the reason Tembo roped him in) but, with Mutharika coming into the mix, there has been a political shift in the area which one would ignore at his peril. Hence, his unquestionable organisational skills aside, Mpinganjira’s influence in the area is far from being guaranteed.
My verdict: A qualified, rather than, absolute hit.
Loveness Gondwe and Beatrice Mwale
Apart from building her reputation as the daughter-in-law of Aford legend Chakufwa Chihana; as first deputy speaker of the National Assembly, albeit briefly; and as the lone Aford MP for the better part of this term, Loveness Gondwe remains a political novice, still learning to crawl, rather than to run.
The likes of Israel’s Golda Meir, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, India’s Indira Ghandi, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Philippine’s Gloria Arroyo and Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf provide a lot of inspiration to aspiring female presidents but Gondwe is living way ahead of her time. Those women were already established at the time of ascending to power — everything Gondwe is not.
Now, for someone very much still learning the tricks of trade to pick another novice — never mind she was one of Aford’s vice-presidents — as a running-mate is perfecting a losing formula.
Yes, women supposedly constitute 52 percent of Malawi’s population and one would expect them to be a little bit sympathetic to a fellow woman. It is one thing to be in majority but it is absurdly farcical to imagine an all-female cast will actually garner a winning vote — unless one is using a faulty political calculator.
Verdict: Miss
Bakili Muluzi and Clement Stambuli
Was Stambuli the ‘choice’? Or was he the ‘compromise choice’?
The UDF was caught up in the business of pretending to achieve a ‘national balance’ where a president cannot pick his running mate from his region of origin — one way in which regionalism is promoted officially. But pretence aside, we all know most of the UDF’s heavyweights are from the Southern Region and we are talking about people who can bring a vote or two.
Had Muluzi been looking for a strong candidate, rather than a ‘non-Southerner’, he would have partnered with a better and stronger candidate.
Credit, however, should go to Stambuli for standing out above the rest but how much of an influence does he wield beyond the borders of Nkhotakota?
Verdict: This is neither a hit nor a miss; ‘may try’ seems more like it
Dindi Gowa Nyasulu and Chinkhokwe Banda
Apart from saying once upon a time Aford was a party to contend with, honestly, I wish there was something else good to say about this pairing. Would Dindi Gowa Nyasulu win the election alone? No. Has Chinkhokwe Banda added anything to Nyasulu’s chances? No. I rest my case.
Verdict: Total miss
James Nyondo and Vivian Thunyani
‘James Who?’ was the question rather than the comment when his name was a mentioned as a presidential candidate. Nyondo is young, he seems to have the right ideas, is well educated BUT he has rushed himself into the big thing.
Unless he performs a miracle within the next three months, Kamlepo Kalua would have done better. Hence, his choice of a running-mate, another nonentity, is inconsequential.
Verdict: Miss, miss and miss
Stanley Masauli and Sophie Kuthyola
After the court battles to stop Gwanda Chakuamba from dissolving the Republican Party and a low-key convention, Masauli has avoided the limelight as cockroaches disdain light.
And Sophie Kuthyola, his running-mate? Another enigma, another unknown.
Verdict: Terrible miss
Kamuzu Chibambo and Samuel Mnenula
Chibambo has never hidden his presidential aspirations but if he thinks he’s going to achieve his dream by picking Mnenula, largely unknown, then he’s missed the bus by a mile.
Verdict: Absolute miss
In fact, some of the presidential candidates don’t even deserve to run for a parliamentary seat, let alone drool for the presidency. So, why should they pick running-mates in the first place? But the vanity of a politician knows no limits, so it would be imprudent to hope they would assess their shortcomings and be contented with what they can afford.
Nevertheless, a running-mate stands between guaranteeing the keys to the State House and a rush to the courts to dispute polls’ results. So, who pulled off a perfect choice?
Bingu wa Mutharika and Joyce Banda
When it became known President Mutharika had fallen for — forgive the expression — Joyce Banda, his Foreign Affairs Minister, and not the other Banda in Henry Chimunthu as it was widely speculated, the question people asked was: Why? Why, indeed!
Joyce Banda is not a bad candidate — far from it. Give me Joyce Banda any day and some other running-mate like, say, Kamlepo Kalua and Amunandife Nkumba, I’ll sing ‘Amazing Grace’ at its loudest pitch.
But, I’m not sure what Banda’s appointment was intended to do. Target the female vote (gender activists take note)? But, as US presidential candidate John McCain found out last year when he picked Sarah Palin for his running-mate, picking a woman if you want to target female vote could be an ill-conceived idea.
Or was Banda’s appointment affirmative action at its best? Or did President Mutharika scheme to annoy others who had been pushing and shoving for the post (in which case, he should brace himself for tough times ahead)? Or perhaps, he wanted to target (and hoping he would split) the Yao vote?
Whatever his motive was, Mutharika made a monumental blunder, perhaps only bettered by Loveness Gondwe and equalled by Stanley Masauli.
Verdict: I wish I could say it was a hit, but...
John Tembo and Brown Mpinganjira
An impossible combination rather than a perfect political marriage made in heaven. Headstrong characters in the 2004, each of whom assumed they could win the elections alone (when everybody else knew they wouldn’t), their egos, especially Mpinganjira’s, seem to have taken so much battering that they are willing to experiment with what should have been in 2004.
Mpinganjira, as president of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a motley crew of disaffected United Democratic Front (UDF) members, is one thing; BJ as an itinerant politician, who failed to strike it on his own and crawled back to the UDF, only to jump ship — again — years later is another.
The former was, forgive the cliché, a force to reckon with; the latter is a political gamble. BJ may still command the respect in the so-called Lomwe belt (which, I suspect, is the reason Tembo roped him in) but, with Mutharika coming into the mix, there has been a political shift in the area which one would ignore at his peril. Hence, his unquestionable organisational skills aside, Mpinganjira’s influence in the area is far from being guaranteed.
My verdict: A qualified, rather than, absolute hit.
Loveness Gondwe and Beatrice Mwale
Apart from building her reputation as the daughter-in-law of Aford legend Chakufwa Chihana; as first deputy speaker of the National Assembly, albeit briefly; and as the lone Aford MP for the better part of this term, Loveness Gondwe remains a political novice, still learning to crawl, rather than to run.
The likes of Israel’s Golda Meir, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, India’s Indira Ghandi, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Philippine’s Gloria Arroyo and Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf provide a lot of inspiration to aspiring female presidents but Gondwe is living way ahead of her time. Those women were already established at the time of ascending to power — everything Gondwe is not.
Now, for someone very much still learning the tricks of trade to pick another novice — never mind she was one of Aford’s vice-presidents — as a running-mate is perfecting a losing formula.
Yes, women supposedly constitute 52 percent of Malawi’s population and one would expect them to be a little bit sympathetic to a fellow woman. It is one thing to be in majority but it is absurdly farcical to imagine an all-female cast will actually garner a winning vote — unless one is using a faulty political calculator.
Verdict: Miss
Bakili Muluzi and Clement Stambuli
Was Stambuli the ‘choice’? Or was he the ‘compromise choice’?
The UDF was caught up in the business of pretending to achieve a ‘national balance’ where a president cannot pick his running mate from his region of origin — one way in which regionalism is promoted officially. But pretence aside, we all know most of the UDF’s heavyweights are from the Southern Region and we are talking about people who can bring a vote or two.
Had Muluzi been looking for a strong candidate, rather than a ‘non-Southerner’, he would have partnered with a better and stronger candidate.
Credit, however, should go to Stambuli for standing out above the rest but how much of an influence does he wield beyond the borders of Nkhotakota?
Verdict: This is neither a hit nor a miss; ‘may try’ seems more like it
Dindi Gowa Nyasulu and Chinkhokwe Banda
Apart from saying once upon a time Aford was a party to contend with, honestly, I wish there was something else good to say about this pairing. Would Dindi Gowa Nyasulu win the election alone? No. Has Chinkhokwe Banda added anything to Nyasulu’s chances? No. I rest my case.
Verdict: Total miss
James Nyondo and Vivian Thunyani
‘James Who?’ was the question rather than the comment when his name was a mentioned as a presidential candidate. Nyondo is young, he seems to have the right ideas, is well educated BUT he has rushed himself into the big thing.
Unless he performs a miracle within the next three months, Kamlepo Kalua would have done better. Hence, his choice of a running-mate, another nonentity, is inconsequential.
Verdict: Miss, miss and miss
Stanley Masauli and Sophie Kuthyola
After the court battles to stop Gwanda Chakuamba from dissolving the Republican Party and a low-key convention, Masauli has avoided the limelight as cockroaches disdain light.
And Sophie Kuthyola, his running-mate? Another enigma, another unknown.
Verdict: Terrible miss
Kamuzu Chibambo and Samuel Mnenula
Chibambo has never hidden his presidential aspirations but if he thinks he’s going to achieve his dream by picking Mnenula, largely unknown, then he’s missed the bus by a mile.
Verdict: Absolute miss
Power all day, when there is no silt
A few weeks ago, Blantyre Water Board (BWB) shocked quite a few of us when it apologised to its customers for a serious water problem in Blantyre.
Now, there is no crime in BWB apologising for its omissions — in this world or the next — and that surely should shock no-one at all. But it was the irony, if not the arrogance, of the apology that riled some of us.
In its arrogant apology, BWB singled out a few areas for feeling the disruption of the water supply that lasted two days — a ‘mere’ two days. Now, don’t get me wrong here; I just wondered what was particularly worrisome or important about these areas that they merited special mention when there are areas I know which go dry for weeks than days and BWB doesn’t just seem to care.
The area I live in, which is less than a kilometre away from its head office, experiences more periods of dry taps than would be particularly acceptable — and we are not talking about a mere two days. There are some areas like Chigumula whose people can remember exactly when their water was running in their taps because that doesn’t happen too often and even when it does, it is usually in the dead of the night.
Yet, the board has never considered it appropriate to apologise for the perennial inconvenience. On second thoughts, though, I know I am asking for far too much from the board; the cost of running adverts apologising for these dry spells could overwhelm its finances.
Of course, for those areas that suffer from chronic water shortages (and indeed, for the entire Blantyre), the board has ready-made excuses: either whoever designed the water system in the city was so dull that he didn’t envisage a population boom 50 years later or the politicking in Parliament prevented it from discussing some water bill, which would have solved the problem.
Whatever the case, I didn’t set out to settle scores, if any, with BWB. It was about Escom that I set out to write on but can one really comment on one, given their similarities, and ignore the other?
For the better part of last week, Escom kept large parts of Blantyre in the dark and it was all blamed on the usual suspect, silt — easily the most overused and meaningless excuse by Escom, if there was any.
We have had load shedding for two years now, which started off innocently as a temporary measure while Escom dredged up the silt at their generating stations.
Two years later, Escom has no clue about what to do with silt and instead, tries as much as possible to publish schedules of load shedding, which are as informative as a prescription from medical doctor. And medical doctors are not reputed for writing anything legible to anyone but themselves.
Escom’s schedules of load shedding are equally bad, making sense only to themselves because I can’t remember the last time they religiously followed their schedules.
I’ll try to suggest to Escom to change its slogan to ‘Power all day, everyday, when there is no silt.’ It would make more sense.
Now, there is no crime in BWB apologising for its omissions — in this world or the next — and that surely should shock no-one at all. But it was the irony, if not the arrogance, of the apology that riled some of us.
In its arrogant apology, BWB singled out a few areas for feeling the disruption of the water supply that lasted two days — a ‘mere’ two days. Now, don’t get me wrong here; I just wondered what was particularly worrisome or important about these areas that they merited special mention when there are areas I know which go dry for weeks than days and BWB doesn’t just seem to care.
The area I live in, which is less than a kilometre away from its head office, experiences more periods of dry taps than would be particularly acceptable — and we are not talking about a mere two days. There are some areas like Chigumula whose people can remember exactly when their water was running in their taps because that doesn’t happen too often and even when it does, it is usually in the dead of the night.
Yet, the board has never considered it appropriate to apologise for the perennial inconvenience. On second thoughts, though, I know I am asking for far too much from the board; the cost of running adverts apologising for these dry spells could overwhelm its finances.
Of course, for those areas that suffer from chronic water shortages (and indeed, for the entire Blantyre), the board has ready-made excuses: either whoever designed the water system in the city was so dull that he didn’t envisage a population boom 50 years later or the politicking in Parliament prevented it from discussing some water bill, which would have solved the problem.
Whatever the case, I didn’t set out to settle scores, if any, with BWB. It was about Escom that I set out to write on but can one really comment on one, given their similarities, and ignore the other?
For the better part of last week, Escom kept large parts of Blantyre in the dark and it was all blamed on the usual suspect, silt — easily the most overused and meaningless excuse by Escom, if there was any.
We have had load shedding for two years now, which started off innocently as a temporary measure while Escom dredged up the silt at their generating stations.
Two years later, Escom has no clue about what to do with silt and instead, tries as much as possible to publish schedules of load shedding, which are as informative as a prescription from medical doctor. And medical doctors are not reputed for writing anything legible to anyone but themselves.
Escom’s schedules of load shedding are equally bad, making sense only to themselves because I can’t remember the last time they religiously followed their schedules.
I’ll try to suggest to Escom to change its slogan to ‘Power all day, everyday, when there is no silt.’ It would make more sense.
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