Post-May 20 elections has thrown up all manners of characters who are wringing their arms trying to come to terms with how someone who received less than 40 percent of the popular vote is lording over them. It's a travesty and outrageous, illegitimate even, they moan, that a 'minority party' should govern the majority.
Such a scenario, they weep further, is retrogressive, entrenches tribalism, creates divisions, exacerbates regionalism and breeds all manner of shenanigans. It's all doomsday stuff, if you listen to some of them with a sympathetic ear.
To their immeasurable credit, they proffer a solution that would have been illuminating were it not flawed, that is, if no candidate receives over 50 percent plus one of the vote (50+1) in future elections, Malawi should conduct a runoff between the two top presidential candidates.
It has everyone nodding their heads in agreement. But let us be frank with facts — and with ourselves: the problems we have as a nation have little, if anything, to do with the flaws in our electoral system.
The fundamental error is to believe that once a candidate attains over 50 percent plus one of the vote, nepotism would be buried, people won't be fired in the public service for their political choices, regionalism would be deleted from our national collective conscience, tribe will cease to exist as a prerequisite qualification for public appointment and all that sentimental hogwash — all because the president would have been elected by a majority of the electorate.
They say that as if we have forgotten how Bingu wa Mutharika shafted the nation after he single-handedly managed to turn a 76 percent political investment in 2009 into a circus of bigotry, nepotism, tribalism, misogyny, murder and economic malaise at the time of his death. Strange how someone who harvested so much national goodwill sowed so many seeds of discord!
No ruling party (and even some, if not all, opposition parties) would acquiesce to any change to the laws. Forget crocodile tears and frothing at the mouth in public. In private the opposition endorses simple plurality; after all, they won’t have to huff and puff their way to Kamuzu Palace. Political parties love the current regime as it is less expensive (monetary terms) and gives almost everyone a good shot at power.
The Democratic Progressive Party proved it in the last elections (as did the United Democratic Front in 2004), and, as the popular saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Would DPP tempt fate and tinker with a system that has served them so well? Doubtful. Would the opposition support changes to a flawed system on which a fellow erstwhile opposition party piggybacked? I'll not wait with bated breath for that wind of change.
Willingness to change aside, the nation would need to grapple with funding for the elections. National Salvation Front president James Nyondo may not be everyone's cup of tea but he did dispense some gems of wisdom during the presidential debates, one of which was about our eternal dependence on donor aid and our reluctance to plan and live on our means. He said something to the effect like: "Kukonza malamulo oti udzidya bread katatu koma ukudalira a neba".
For the May 20 elections donors committed up to 40 percent of Malawi's electoral funding (although they dispensed less) but Mec still has debts to settle incurred from conducting the elections. In the event of a runoff, who do we expect to fund our never-ending experiment with democracy? If we can't find our source of funding that will not disturb allocations to others sectors of our society, let us keep our mouths shut and let the current system flourish, flawed as it may be. Arguing that democracy is expensive will earn you top marks in a political science class but it will neither buy medicine in public hospitals nor pay public workers.
The funding aspect calls for a fundamental change in thought and habit. We need an independent Malawi Electoral Commission that would be funded by the state comprehensively. None of that, however, will happen. The state is motivated to keep MEC on a short leash, dependent and underfunded to ensure it remains an organiser of events rather than a process that elections ought to be. MEC is at the mercy of the executive and donors even to organise a by-election in one ward.
While we agitate for 50+1, we should also consider how we can tackle voter apathy. Voting in Malawi is not compulsory and experience has shown that turnout in by-elections is very poor with close to 25 percent. The recent by-elections in Thyolo and Blantyre, among other areas, attest to this. So, if only 25 percent registered voters turn-up in a presidential runoff, the threshold of victory would be significantly reduced (about 13 percent of all registered voters) and may not address the issue which the 50+1 brigade is campaigning for. To cap the grim picture, some internal conflicts in Africa have started after candidates have refused to accept results of a run-off, all because the stakes are high and the expectation even higher.
Admittedly, the 50+1 raises the stakes and improves the quality of competition. It also ensures that the majority of voters are subjected to a narrower choice and can be able to give their choice much thought. But we just don’t have the resources and the political conviction to tread that route.
Maybe we wouldn’t have this discussion if intra-party democracy was the byword for our political parties. Malawi has 40-plus 'cry-baby' political parties, all of whom were conceived due to a clash of egos. While the right to form a political party is everyone's right, isn't it time we put restrictions to safeguard registering parties whose pervasive ideology is 'tantrum'? Maybe, just maybe, if we had fewer parties, we wouldn’t even need 50+1.
Come to think of it, even MEC would have saved substantially if we only had the four presidential candidates and excluded the eight no-hopers!
