I completely agree with John Tembo’s apt description of the ruling PP as a rag-tag organisation consisting an array of individuals that have nothing in common but are together by some misfortune (or is it fortune for them?) of fate and then all of sudden thrust into the pedestal of being called, without a single vote cast for them, a ruling party of Malawi.
The poignancy of the above description could have not been more relevant than this week when two PP top dogs, secretary general Paul Maulidi and deputy publicity secretary Ken Msonda, decided to engage in a public sparring over what should have been a straightforward matter.
Under normal circumstances, it was an open-shut case in which the junior between the two, who happens to be Msonda, should have relented and immediately apologised as demanded by his senior for saying that PP has the necessary machinery in place and is ready to go to war against DPP thugs in revenge for the violent acts the ruling party suffered in Mulanje.
But Msonda has stubbornly refused to cave in and has instead rattled more, accusing his secretary general almost of being a softie and allowing PP members to be punch bags of the DPP.
At the time I was putting this piece together, I had not heard anything else about the matter, but my hope is that by the time you are reading it, Msonda has either been fired or has resigned of his own accord to follow into the footsteps of other PP officials such as Henry Chibwana who think the mere fact of being in the ruling party gives them the licence to put their feet into their mouth and peddle into the public discourse statements that are not only outlandish but also put the country’s social and political order into danger.
In the ordinary sense, it should be none of my business when the PP decides to portray itself as an organisation that has no sense of protocol and discipline where every Jim and Jack can open their mouths without recourse to their seniors and commit a party to a future of violence and lawlessness instead of letting police do their job to solve a crime.
But I am aware that when Msonda says PP has the machinery to fight a war of attrition with DPP, he does not refer to his own children or those of other PP top officials to go to the trenches for his latest favourite pastime, but those that were born of poor people and, this in my world, is the greatest social injustice that our politics in its present form can hand out to the youth of Malawi. Unfortunately, because of rampant poverty, some of them play along to be foot soldiers of misguided politicians like Msonda who stick to a mistaken but dangerous view that election times are ones to wage physical violent war against opponents.
When all is said and done, Malawians should now decide whether PP, whose officials were drawn to each other not by any distinguishable ideology but mere fate and can argue in public over an obvious thing, are the safe hands into which to entrust the future of this country.
