Malawi’s vice-presidents have always drunk from a poisoned chalice.
The late Justin Malewezi, the late Saulos Chilima, Cassim Chilumpha, Joyce Banda and Khumbo Kachali know this story.
Each, at different points and under different circumstances, experienced the difficulties that can come with occupying the country’s second-highest political office.
Now Jane Ansah is getting her own taste of it.
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But there is something different about Ansah’s situation. The poisoned chalice seems to have reached her far too early.
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Ansah has been vice-president for less than a year and is already speaking publicly about being sidelined within the administration she was elected to help lead.
She says she has been excluded from Cabinet meetings and denied Cabinet papers.
She has also complained about being left out of official programmes involving President Peter Mutharika.
These are serious allegations coming from the country’s first vice-president.
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Yet Ansah has been careful in how she describes her relationship with Mutharika. She says it remains cordial and has directed her complaints at Chief Secretary Justin Saidi and people around the presidency and the Democratic Progressive Party.
But, perhaps Ansah is being diplomatic.
Because there is an awkward question that the President himself should answer.
How can the vice-president be repeatedly excluded from government business without the President knowing about it?
Does Mutharika not ask why his first vice-president is absent from a Cabinet meeting?
Does he not ask why she is not representing him at an official event when she is available?
And when Second Vice- President Enoch Chihana is asked to perform duties while the first vice-president is available, does nobody at State House ask why?
In July, Chihana chaired a Cabinet meeting in Lilongwe while Ansah was reportedly available. Saidi said the President had the prerogative to delegate either vice-president to chair Cabinet.
The President may indeed have that power.
But the power to delegate does not remove the need for an explanation.
If the first vice-president is available and the second vice-president is chosen to chair Cabinet, there should be a clear reason. If the first vice-president is not receiving Cabinet papers, the President should know why.
Otherwise, Malawians are left with two uncomfortable possibilities.
Either Mutharika knows what is happening and accepts it or people around him are making decisions affecting the role of his vice-president without his knowledge.
Neither possibility reflects well on the way the Executive is being run.
The President is the head f the Executive. Saidi is the country’s most senior civil servant. He does not stand above the President.
So, when Ansah says she is being prevented from participating fully in government business, it is difficult to stop the questions at the Chief Secretary’s office.
Where does the instruction come from?
Who decides whether the vice-president attends Cabinet?
Who decides which vice-president represents the President?
Who decides whether the first vice-president receives Cabinet papers?
These questions deserve clear answers.
Ansah says she has sought explanations from Saidi but has not received satisfactory responses. She has also said she prefers to follow procedure before taking the matter directly to Mutharika.
That approach may explain why she has remained measured in her public statements.
But silence from the administration creates its own problem.
The longer these questions remain unanswered, the more the issue becomes a test of presidential leadership.
Mutharika cannot have it both ways.
If Ansah is an important member of his administration, the public deserves to understand why she appears to be absent from important government business.
If there are legitimate reasons for her exclusion from particular meetings or events, those reasons should be stated.
If Saidi has acted outside his authority, the President should deal with that.
If the decisions were made with the President’s knowledge, he should own them.
What cannot work is leaving Ansah to publicly explain her exclusion while the administration remains silent.
This is where the history of Malawi’s vice-presidency becomes relevant.
Malewezi, Chilumpha, Banda, Kachali and Chilima all experienced difficult relationships with presidents they served under.
Their circumstances differed, but the office repeatedly found itself caught between constitutional responsibility and the political realities of serving under a President who controls the Executive.
Ansah’s case appears to be following that familiar path remarkably quickly.
She was elected alongside Mutharika. She is still defending their relationship publicly. She has not declared a political break.
Yet she is already telling the country that she is being left out of government business.
That should concern the President.
The vice-president should not have to campaign for an invitation to Cabinet. She should not have to chase Cabinet papers. She should not have to wonder why Chihana is representing the President when she is available.
The poisoned chalice has been passed from one vice-president to another for decades.
Jane Ansah appears to have received hers far too soon.
The President still has an opportunity to address the questions surrounding her role before this becomes another chapter in Malawi’s long history of troubled presidential partnerships.
