Don’t take peace for granted
After the anger and bitterness from the outcome of the tripartite elections, there was palpable euphoria and elation within the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) camp when the party’s vice president Richard Msowoya was elected Speaker of the National Assembly after defeating my very good friend Francis Kasaila. You could see that this victory meant a lot to the party that still feels hard done by. few words of congratulations are in order for several people as the line-up in the new cycle of government takes shape. Monday saw Parliament hold elections for its Speaker and deputies while on Thursday morning nine new faces joined Goodall Gondwe as part of a Cabinet that, we have been promised several times by President Peter Mutharika, will have no more than 20 men and women.
Although I would have loved Kasaila to win from purely a personal point of view, I must say that I was very impressed with Msowoya during the running mate debates that I listened to and attended. For me, therefore, he was the right choice and I have no doubt in my mind that he has both the personality and temperament to handle and lead that august House with all the madness it is wont to exhibit.
My consolation is that Kasaila has not only been appointed minister, but also made Leader of the House. I am very happy for him because there could be no greater vote of confidence from the party hierarchy. Of course, that means the positions that have gone to Kasaila would have gone to someone else had he made it as Speaker. Someone, somewhere has just missed out on a Cabinet appointment.
A lot has been said about the piecemeal nature of Cabinet appointments this time. It is something Malawians are not used to and I understand all the arguments that have been advanced in opposition to the situation. If you asked me, however, I am not entirely surprised because a lean Cabinet is much more difficult to put together, more so where you have a minority government and would require inter-party negotiations.
I am sure that if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had a comfortable majority in Parliament and there was no limit, self-imposed though it may be, on the size of the Cabinet, we would have had a full one much earlier. In this case, however, there is a lot of mixing and matching that has to be done because the number of hopefuls to be disappointed is definitely going to be much higher.
Several people have already commented on the appointments made so far, but I will reserve my verdict until I have studied the full line-up for the new Cabinet. Suffice to say that there is a lot of expectation from the people on this government and those that were in Cabinet before will do well to realise that much more will be demanded from them based on the many promises in the DPP manifesto.
That task will be made even harder given that the balance of power in Parliament seems to be in favour of the opposition. If the elections for Speaker and his deputies are anything to go by, it is clear that government will not have its way. There will be a great deal of reaching out to get government business done. Of course, where you have the right business to transact that should never be an issue.
Listening to MCP president Lazarus Chakwera and People’s Party (PP)’s Ralph Jooma in their response to President Mutharika’s State of the Nation address on Thursday, it was clear that the opposition is determined to give government a real run for their money. It must be said, however, that in Malawi the opposition has hardly been helpful so far, whether in majority or minority, because of too much pursuit of narrow interests.
Talk of the elections, I was part of a roundtable discussion to discuss the way forward on the recommendations made the European Union Election Observer Mission on Wednesday and the take-home message from both the mission and the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) was that the country’s first-ever tripartite elections were a logistical shambles although the eventual outcome could not be in question.
MEC chairperson Maxon Mbendera actually called the electoral process a fiasco which he apologised for, but insisted the result was credible. I do not want to question that but I wish the esteemed judge were a bit more consistent. Two days before announcing the results he told the world that he felt the election was free, fair and credible. Can he help me factor in the word fiasco in that equation?
I feel this is important because as chair of the commission that declared results that brought us the current government, he must refrain from statements that implicitly question the legitimacy of the government. Surely no one can be proud to have won in an election that has been called a fiasco by those who conducted it! It just gives more ammunition to those who remain aggrieved over the whole process.
Going forward, however, it is important that all the reforms that have been discussed many times before be dealt with as a matter of urgency. The fact that we have remained a peaceful country after that fiasco should not be taken for granted.
