JB must attend debates

April 22, 2014

President Joyce Banda’s handlers, who have convinced her to shun debates that Misa Malawi and other electoral stakeholders have organised in Lilongwe and Blantyre, are completely being unfair to her and their actions are damaging her chances to reclaim the State House.

Their advice is misguided and has the potential to spectacularly backfire come May 20. To any fair minded Malawian, the impression it is creating is that the President is a coward who is afraid to face Malawians in a setting she is not fully in control of.

But more crucially, shunning these debates is lending credence to her detractors who say she has something to hide, especially in view of the fact that the Cashgate through which billions of kwacha were stolen from Malawians happened on her watch.

Yet all this can fall off if the President unveils herself to Malawians just for a three-hour gruelling debate.

The President has her line on Cashgate which she has consistently sold to Malawians and it is that she did not personally benefit from the scandal, but because it has happened on her watch, her government has taken a tough stand to bring to book all those that have stolen billions from poor Malawians.

She wants voters to give her the mandate to govern on May 20 to continue her so-called fight against corruption.

Whether the voters have bought this line of thought will be seen on the polling day when this contest will be settled.

But I would have thought she has full confidence in this strategy and ready to face the electorate at anytime and anywhere. Unfortunately, her absence from debates does not do justice to this and it reflects someone who has been wrongly advised by gullible advisers.

And talking of PP advisers such as Ken Msonda, they must show some respect to Malawians when they are justifying the wrong advice that they are giving to their candidate. How can Msonda say the President cannot attend the debates because she is always out campaigning? Really? Does she campaign at night? How and to who?

These debates happen in the evening and campaign rallies are conducted during day time. In fact, on Tuesday the President was in Salima during the day, engaging in her favourite campaign pastime which is to promote as many T/As as possible to senior chiefs.

It is people such as Msonda and PP acting secretary general Paul Maulidi who are misguiding the President who seem to have everything against debates. For Maulidi, it is only a few weeks ago when he was at the forefront rubbishing running mates debate that Zodiak Broadcasting Station organised, claiming it was favouring MCP.

Today, he is doing the same things albeit with different reasons. Does he know that he sounds hollow and petty?

But PP must know this. There is a large constituency of influential voters who will not show up at a campaign rally because of who they are. These are mostly working middle-class Malawians who have better things to do than attend a campaign rally and hear tonnes upon tonnes of empty salacious profanities that politicians are so fond of when they are on a political podium. The only way to get to such people is through the intellectual engagement in the media.

These debates offer just that opportunity. Those who are free in the evenings attend them. Millions of others follow them through radio, TV, Internet and through analysis in the printed word.

Do PP and the President not care about this constituency? Can they look straight in their face and say, you do not matter?

JB must attend the debates. It is not too late. She has to show that she is willing and capable of being under scrutiny and be accountable to Malawians anywhere, anytime.