By Francis Belekanyama:
The latest intervention by State Vice President Jane Ansah should not be dismissed as another disagreement between political personalities; nor should it automatically be interpreted as evidence of a collapsing government. Her claim that she is being sidelined by figures around President Peter Mutharika deserves a more serious examination because it exposes a problem Malawi has repeatedly encountered since the return to multiparty democracy: We have constitutionalised the office of the Vice President without sufficiently institutionalising its practical authority.
Ansah has distinguished her relationship with President Mutharika, which she describes as cordial, from what she says is an effort by unnamed individuals to undermine her role. More recently, she has alleged that the Chief Secretary to the Government withheld Cabinet information from her, including papers normally circulated before Cabinet meetings.
She has also spoken about responsibilities previously assigned to her being transferred elsewhere. These remain allegations, and they should be established through proper procedures rather than political assumption. But the constitutional question raised by them is legitimate: What happens when the person constitutionally designated to assist the President cannot reliably access the information required to perform that function?
The Constitution provides for a First Vice President who assists the President and exercises powers and functions conferred by the Constitution, an Act of Parliament or by the President. The President and First Vice President are elected concurrently, with the Vice President appearing on the same ballot as the presidential candidate.
- Advertisement -
At the same time, the President remains Head of State and Government. This creates a delicate institutional balance: The Vice President has a direct democratic mandate, but much of the practical scope of the office depends on the constitutional framework and presidential assignment. That is the uncomfortable issue we should be discussing.
If a President assigns substantial responsibilities to a Vice President, the office can become highly influential. If those responsibilities are withdrawn, transferred to ministers or moved back into the Office of the President and Cabinet, the same Vice President can remain constitutionally legitimate while becoming practically marginal.
Recent changes involving the Department of Disaster Management Affairs and public-sector reforms have already illustrated how the allocation of portfolios can materially alter the practical influence of the Vice President.
Malawi’s political history demonstrates that this is not an isolated Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) problem. Under Bakili Muluzi, Justin Malewezi experienced political tensions within the governing establishment.
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -
Under Bingu wa Mutharika, Cassim Chilumpha’s relationship with the President deteriorated into a highly public political and legal dispute.
Joyce Banda’s experience was even more consequential: Although she became politically estranged from Mutharika’s DPP, she remained Vice President and ultimately assumed the presidency following his death in April 2012.
The Lazarus Chakwera- Saulos Chilima experience provides a different but equally instructive lesson. Their 2020 partnership brought together two politicians who had previously competed against each other and produced an electoral alliance in which Chilima was promised an unusually substantial governing role.
Contemporary reports on the Tonse Alliance agreement indicated that Chilima would have responsibility for finance and public-sector reforms, reflecting an intention to create a more empowered vice presidency. The experience demonstrated something important: The political authority of a Vice President can be considerably greater when responsibilities are clearly assigned, politically negotiated and publicly understood.
These examples matter because they demonstrate that the problem cannot fairly be attributed to one party or one President. The recurring pattern itself is the problem.
But there is another dimension that receives insufficient attention. Marginalising a Vice President is not merely a political inconvenience; it can amount to a waste of an institution that taxpayers finance. The country elects a Vice-President, maintains an office, provides staff and resources, and expects that office to contribute to national governance.
If responsibilities that could legitimately be performed by the Vice President are shifted elsewhere because of political calculations, Malawi may be paying for institutional capacity that it is deliberately choosing not to use.
At the same time, we should not make the opposite mistake of assuming that every Vice President is automatically entitled to unrestricted Executive authority. A President remains Head of State and Government, and effective government requires a clear centre of Executive responsibility.
Delegation cannot mean two presidents operating simultaneously. The legitimate question is, therefore, not whether the Vice President should have equal power to the President, but whether the office should have predictable, defined and meaningful functions rather than responsibilities that can rise or disappear according to political relationships.
There is an even more uncomfortable question. What happens when unelected actors around the President become more influential in government than an elected Vice President? This is not an allegation that every adviser, Cabinet minister or presidential official is acting improperly. It is a question of institutional design.
If a constitutionally recognised office must depend on informal gatekeepers to access information, the problem is bigger than an interpersonal dispute. It becomes a question about how Executive government itself is functioning.
This is where Parliament should take an interest. Rather than asking only who is frustrating whom, Malawi should examine whether the legal and administrative framework provides sufficient clarity on the functions of the Vice-President.
Parliament could consider whether certain areas of coordination, oversight and national development responsibility should be more clearly defined, while preserving the President’s constitutional authority.
Political parties also have a responsibility. Selecting a running mate should not be treated merely as an electoral calculation. It creates an Executive partnership that must survive beyond election day. Voters deserve to know whether a running mate is being selected because he or she will have a meaningful governing role or simply because the individual strengthens an electoral ticket.
Ansah’s intervention may eventually prove to be a temporary political disagreement. We should not prejudge that. But Malawi would be making a mistake if it treated the matter as simply another quarrel between a President and Vice-President.
After more than three decades of recurring tensions, the pattern itself has become evidence.
The question is no longer whether Malawi has had difficult vice presidents or difficult presidents. The deeper question is whether our system repeatedly produces conditions in which a constitutional office becomes dependent on personal trust, political proximity and informal access rather than predictable institutional rules.
A mature democracy should not require a Vice President to fight publicly to prove that the office has relevance. The Constitution should make that relevance clear before the political fight begins.
*The author is a Member of Parliament
