Khumbo should not waste our time

May 13, 2014

Vice-President Khumbo Kachali should not waste our time as Malawians by behaving as if he is a political heavyweight when the reality on  the ground zero is that he is not.

The fact of the matter, which everyone in this country knows, is that Kachali has been a deeply bitter and frustrated man since he lost the running mate spot in the ruling PP to Sosten Gwengwe.

Whether President Joyce Banda was right or wrong to prefer the young and mercurial Gwengwe to Kachali will be seen on Tuesday when voters will finally have their say.

Suffice to say the decision has left Kachali a broken man full of rancour and at the moment there is nothing better on his mind than to exact an electoral defeat on the President that he is prepared to even dine with the ‘devil’ if the end result means serving the cold dish of revenge to PP.

With a week before polling day, Kachali went on an endless orgy of antics that started with his endorsement of Peter Mutharika of DPP, an outfit that booted him out in 2010 after he was seen to be supporting Banda when she was fighting for her political survival against the party’s anointed heir.

After seeing that PP would not take it lying down and threatened to stop the parliamentary race in Mzimba South West where Kachali is standing on its ticket, the Vice-President made a U-turn on Tuesday telling the nation that he is still in PP.

In between all these Machiavellian gimmicks, Kachali has made various outrageous statements the most laughable and patronising of which was the suggestion that the over one million voters in the North would vote where he points them.

I have serious problems with this because by uttering these words, Kachali seems to assume a higher position which is not his. He assumes he has such a big influence in the region by the mere fact that he comes from there.

This is outrageous as it is patronising a whole regional population as if they were Kachali’s own children to be told what to do and how to do it.

But Kachali should be wary of this. In the past others such as the late Chakufwa Chihana tried to assume that the North would be their flock and that they would shepherd them where they fancied them to be such as to UDF or MCP.

To Chihana’s utter shock and disappointment, the people of the North refused to take this nonsense and Chihana’s influence waned over the years so much that during his demise in 2006, Aford was a shadow of itself in a region where it swept all seats in the first multiparty election of 1994.

Today Khumbo Kachali does not even come closer to Chihana if history and stature in the North would be the criteria. Why, therefore, Kachali would want to claim the higher position for himself in the North beats the hell out of me.

But let us get this clear. Malawians are busy people and are about to make a very important decision on the direction that this country should take for the next five years and who should be in charge of that vision.

Characters like Kachali should do Malawians a favour to concentrate on this rather more important task than engage them in senseless personal feuds and vendettas that emanate from political frustrations.

I wish you, dear readers, a great and peaceful day on Tuesday. I can only join in repeating what has now become almost a redundant phrase: Vote well and vote wisely.