Lomwe voters and the opposition fake outrage
As the nation reels from a K270.4 billion claim for compensation from a businessman whose tentacles extend to State House and other arms of government, opposition political parties have felt it necessary to express indignation at remarks that really should not rile them at all.
The simple reason that the remarks which the Mulhako wa Alhomwe chairperson Leston Mulli should really not anger anyone is that they are actually true.
At the Mulhako celebrations over the weekend, Mulli came out and said what everyone has been thinking all along: the majority of voters in the districts of Thyolo, Mulanje, Luchenza, Phalombe and parts of Zomba will vote for Peter Mutharika for president because he is one of them.
The consolidation of power in the Lomwe belt has been such that it goes without question that the majority of voters in these districts will give the vote to a fellow tribesman. Mulhako wa Alhomwe was created for that specific reason after all.
It is Mulli’s belief, and rightly so, that no political party or presidential candidate will win in the Lomwe belt for the flawed reasoning that what the likes of Patricia Kaliati and Bon Kalindo did to dare to challenge the legitimacy of Mutharika as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) torchbearer is culturally not right.
Much as Mulli’s savagery and buffoonery can be mistaken for a man who has no intelligence, he knows that he is talking about. Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and even United Transformation Movement (UTM) cannot wish away the 1.2 million votes that Mutharika obtained in the Southern Region in the 2014 Tripartite Elections nor can MCP ignore the fact that their presidential candidate Lazarus Chakwera got a measly 67013 votes in the whole Southern Region.
In the same vein, MCP’s Chakwera cannot for a moment think their 1.2 million votes in the Central Region were a fluke. What MCP should be cracking its brain about is how Mutharika obtained over 400 000 votes in their backyard instead of crying foul about the utterances of one Mulli.
The Northern Region, on the other hand, has not been anybody’s playground since 1999 when slowly the voters there kicked out their own, Alliance for Democracy (Aford) to the point of giving them one Member of Parliament in 2014.
The political parties that are up in arms about this just do not want to hear the uncomfortable truth that they have very little chance of penetrating the Lomwe belt come May 2019.
The outrage the opposition MCP, Peoples Party and UTM are expressing about Mulli’s remarks are really misplaced because along the way, they will too practice similar politics of tribalism and regionalism.
Mulli is a true reflection of this society, of a people that since multiparty have voted along tribal and regional lines. It is the same belief that MCP is arrogant enough to declare in undertones that the fight for representation of the party in central region is because no candidate can lose when they contest on the MCP ticket in Chewa belt.
Tribal feelings that simmer under the surface and have not reached the dangerous levels as those of Kenya.
We can shout from the mountaintops about how tribes do not matter, how there is only one tribe in Malawi and that is Malawian but that would be sweeping trash under the carpet.
Denying that tribalism exists will not make the tribal differences go away, they will be there and elections every five years will continue to bear testimony to this.
