Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, Mike Tyson once said. It is unforeseen but Malawi’s sojourn to ‘Canaan’ will almost certainly not materialise.
As things are, Malawi is in the doldrums. A nation that intently looked to improved leadership to shepherd a turnaround of fortunes is angry and downhearted. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.
The morale that citizens generated to march through the deserts has dissipated under the weight of procrastination and outright deceit. Malawians have no option but to start searching for a leader who can reignite the lost hope.
The people must find and build support around a leader who has the image and the skill to regenerate expectations and get them to see themselves in revitalised spirits of national pride.
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That is a leader who will ‘inspire beyond the campaign’ and keep the fire of development burning.
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This time, the call must be for younger innovative minds able to break with primitive party traditions; selfless creatives who shall inspire innovation in the people where they are, in what they do and towards where they aspire to go.
Malawians can be re-motivated with relative ease, but this calls for spirited leadership which can re-establish positive contact with the people and re-build a mutually motivating leader-citizen bond of trust, belief and commitment.
Vital at this juncture are leaders with stable and inspiring enough integrity to make and keep realistic promises, to protect and judiciously use resources and to distribute available resources equitably.
Leadership in democracies needs statesmanship not politics, meaning the ability to be fair and just and to resign when they fail.
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Malawi needs to recruit leaders who will serve with moral duty, men and women who will willingly surrender to common good and to creating a future that works for all citizens.
They are not leaders, individuals who justify failure and sanitise injustice. Time has come for the society to seek out human beings with an accomplished sense of humanness, Malawians who feel morally obliged to account for their actions and prepared to be taken to account without criminal avoidance.
Malawi has better chances of accelerating its development agenda if citizens attract leaders that are humble enough to admit and undertake to correct mistakes but strong enough to stick to the principle of collective betterment of the society rather than for own benefits.
As the people conduct this search, two issues require advocacy for change.
To begin with, they do not need a Cabinet comprising legislators. Legislators should make laws, period.
We expect that a small team selected from the best of citizens will lead the nation. We have learnt quite harshly that party dominance in the Executive branch breeds arrogance and nurses corruption.
We have had enough of ‘dictatorships of tribes’ making children of respectable adults.
In addition, legislators will not champion development; councillors will, according to the law. Fronting politicians has exposed resources to wanton abuse.
Moving forward, Malawians should elect leaders who must follow the law and support ‘power to the people’ not to politicians.
Malawians have become much wiser. They know that politicians are the cause, not the solution, to the development stagnation in the country.
The people are increasingly weary of politicians who make promises they will keep. They now want statesmen.
Malawians are convinced that men without honour cannot build an honourable society. It is the height of hypocrisy to expect a country of justice and equity from such insensitive men.
