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?