Vice President and UTM leader Saulos Chilima’s penchant for suspense and slackness was once his saving grace. It seems, in the present scheme of things, most likely not to be anymore.
After falling out with the leadership of that time’s governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Chilima painstakingly played the persecution card and won the hearts of a good number of voters.
He presented himself as a saint in the midst of an extensive array of evil people who plotted nothing for Malawi but destruction.
Even while he remained in a government that he passionately despised, Chilima went to town vilifying anything DPP or pro-DPP.
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Well, the party had reached the summit of all manner of governance malaise and attempted as much as it could to maintain the status quo.
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But the time Chilima pushed the UTM agenda— before he was ambushed at the 2019 elections, where he got around one million votes, much to his supporters’ chagrin—he was still part of a government he vehemently reviled.
Some civil society organisations pushed for a declaration of his constructive resignation, but their efforts yielded nothing, because they should have never meant to in the first place.
The organisations were just a bunch of jobless men and women who had been contracted by Chilima’s opponents to smear him with the mud that he might have, in reality, deserved.
Still that time, Malawians were looking for something that would bring change, after the numerous governance blunders by the DPP administration which had mastered the art of promoting cronyism, regionalism and tribalism.
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So Chilima appeared to be a better alternative, at least to those who believed in his fleeting ideas, but got a bitter dosage at the elections.
He then opted to join forces with Malawi Congress Party’s Lazarus Chakwera and ‘humbled’ himself by agreeing to play second fiddle one again.
The truth is that he had no choice anyway, just like he does not seem to have much choice this time again.
Having come third in the 2019 presidential election, Chilima would not be made leader of any alliance he moved into.
That is the brutality of politics that some political fanatics choose to ignore.
Now, we are talking about how the 2025 elections will play out, especially with the 50-plus-one system in the picture.
Like others have suggested before, no single political party is likely to attain that margin at one go; thus, partnerships will be crucial.
In the meantime, Chilima remains in the current government, which his loyalists, such as Patricia Kaliati—that garrulous politician who has, on several occasions, chanced upon being appointed Cabinet minister—have gone to great lengths to demonise.
Predictably, Chilima has chosen to take the backseat, ostensibly ignoring his henchmen’s disparaging of the current administration, in a sheer display of his endorsement.
His supporters have promulgated that the silence, even after his apparent persecution by the government he belongs to, is a strategy.
Whatever that means, Chilima finds himself at a crucial political crossroads.
It is difficult to determine his political future how because two heavy issues are weighing down his shoulders.
First, a judgement delivered years back appeared to imply someone cannot be in the presidency for more than two full terms. Legal scholars and experts do not have a unified position on this.
There was a time the Malawi Law Society indicated it would not back a “divergent change” in the law to suit a particular individual.
This was after questions had been raised about Chilima’s eligibility in relation to the judgement which was never challenged and remains part of the country’s legal reference documents.
On top of that, Chilima is answering criminal charges whose outcome is unpredictable, just like it should be the case with all other court cases.
This could have a bearing on his suitability to run for president if he so desires.
Perhaps, everything that is being said about the beleaguered vice president is just hot air, for he has not explicitly declared his interest to compete for the hot heat.
But his supporters have indicated on several occasions that his name will be on the ballot paper come 2027.
Chilima himself has chosen to watch the voices from a distance, perhaps while calculating his next political move.
It would still do him a lot of good if he realised and accepted that the tricks that he used when dumping DPP might not work well this time.
He should probably just come out now.
