Waiting for a turn

Tom Sangala February 4, 2018

794 3 minutes read

Because we are used to—and sadly that is the truth right now—the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) are two parties that have taken a yard closer to the 2019 finish line.

Ask around, word in town is that only the DPP and the MCP stand a decent chance to form the next government. On social media, there is a raging battle between MCP and DPP fanatics. What is very clear from the posts that I occasionally peep through, the DPP is wetting in its pants at the prospect of the MCP forming the next government. The MCP, too, has its pants soiled especially this time that it cannot put its house in order and that the DPP looks likely to hold on to power beyond 2019.

Our brains, as Malawians, have been washed with a powerful detergent such that we have come to believe that our salvation will only come through either Peter Mutharika or Lazarus Chakwera. Joyce Banda of the People’s Party (PP), of course, will have to pull a strong stunt to get back into the fore after the mess she presided over between 2012 and 2014. Atupele Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) can as well be ruled out of contention because he has no pad to launch his argument having been a constant fixture in the government since 2014.

So far, the MCP appears to be the strongest block on DPP’s way to 2024, and you can easily read this from the way DPP zealots are investing their energies to fuel the wrangles that are steadily tearing the MCP apart.

Politically, the DPP knows that its mojo has gone flaccid of late and it needs some serious massaging to get it back to form.

The MCP has been all over the place thinking that just because the DPP has proven to be a mess, everyone will go into a delirious frenzy screaming Kwachaaaaaa in 2019. The MCP is wrong, very wrong!

The truth that some MCP zealots will not be happy with is that their party has only become attractive because Malawians are simply tired of the horrendous rule under the DPP. The MCP has not given me any reason to vote for them in power just like the DPP has given me all the reasons never to vote for it. The PP and the UDF, I must say, do not even come any closer to my choice.

What Malawi needs, I think, is a fresh face that will deconstruct the political party construction that is heavily pulling us down. I know of bright minds that have sold their souls to political affiliation and would never fathom the idea of existing without a party setup.

I have always drawn inspiration from France when the unheralded Emmanuel Macron led the en marche. France, compared to the shithole that is Malawi, is a country that would easily lull its citizens to contentment. They have almost all they need. But France, got tired of political party blindness and opted to take an unfamiliar route. Contrary to established beliefs, France showed the world that people have the right to step out of political-party bigotry when they chose a leader unattached to any political party.

The MCP and the DPP still believe that—and they might be right, somehow—that people will blindly vote for them because they are what they are.

But we should by now have been an awakened nation that refuses to tolerate abuse that our leaders subject us to. Take, for instance, all we do is to complain in low tones that the country has been rundown by corruption and we cannot do anything about it.

President Peter Mutharika has on many occasions expressed ignorance of corruption that is rampant under his watch. Either, my good leader has selective amnesia or he is surrounded by a gang of hounds that is there to perform its heinous acts in the name of the big man.

It would be silly for people to think that the MCP will, by a wave of a magic wand, end all the problems that we have as a nation.

In the MCP, just like in the DPP or any other party that we have, are people who are in politics not to serve the country but their insatiable thirst for riches. These people, just like all the parties that have led us before will become intimidating, corrupt, dishonest and boring and all they are doing now is waiting for a turn.