On The Frontline

Mr President, Chilima is your greatest asset!

I don’t know about you, but President Peter Mutharika should thank God today, not tomorrow, for his Veep, Right Honourable Saulos Klaus Chilima.

You see, since 1994, there hasn’t been a president so lucky to be blessed with a vice-president who is, yes, loyal and frank but, most crucially, fearless.

The closest, from the ones we have had, could have been Justin Malewezi. He was loyal and frank, of course; but, unfortunately, too fearful to stand up to his boss, Bakili Muluzi, and advise him accordingly and publicly.

Look, I keep saying this. I do not believe that our presidents don’t mean well for the nation. They do.

However, there is a fundamental problem that, sometimes, defines their flaw. It is called the trap of power—something which no president, across the world, is safe from.

This is a situation where every day, as a president, you wake up and only hear praise and worship from those close to you, and nothing but slander from critics—especially the media, the opposition and the civil society.

For Mutharika, he wakes up everyday greeted by his closest aides in the likes of Patricia Kaliati, who showers him with unconditional praise and worship, reminding him that he is delivering only that Lazarus Chakwera and Boniface Dulani are jealous of his presidency.

After being done with flatterers, Mutharika, everyday, reads the media—both print and electronic—where he is greeted with pathetic cynics who always ignore his positives but underline his failure, constantly reminding him that his leadership ratings are dwindling and that he is a constant talker short of delivering.

Trust me; this is a trap of power that Mutharika, or any other president, finds himself or herself in every day. It is a reality of the presidency.

Now,  if you were Mutharika, who do you to listen to?

Would you prefer the caressing melodies of Kaliati—the flatterer like Decius Brutus, in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caeser, who lured the unwilling Julius Caeser to go to the Capital where he was killed? Or you would prefer critics like Dulani—cynics who live in the idealistic world of seeking leadership perfection?

If I were Mutharika, I would ignore these two extremes and seek the middle. I would look for someone who would, in honest way, dust off the truth of my leadership as it is.

To be honest, none among Mutharika’s predecessors had the opportunity to have strong people within their establishments bold enough not to challenge but advice them truthfully.

Mutharika, fortunately, has that opportunity in his veep, Chilima.

You see, I would, of course to a lesser extent, understand Mutharika if he ignores advice from Chakwera, an opposition leader, and Dulani, a critic and an academic. These guys, often, represent the extreme side of Mutharika’s leadership flaws.

But I would be extremely surprised, to the point of questioning his mental state, if Mutharika ignores honest and frank advice from his veep.

For what I know is that all is not well in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Just one year in office, it appears intra-party political tusslings for elections in 2019 have already started—something deterring the party from concentrating on the core issues of running State affairs. The results are nothing different from what Dulani and Afrobarometer found that Mutharika’s leadership ratings are dwindling—even in his home village.

Instead of directing the President, already living in a trap of power, to address the cause of the problem, flatterers are advising him that the problem is that Chakwera and Dulani are jealousy.  Solution? Let us roll out nationwide political rallies and use loud mouths like Kaliati to attack Chakwera and Dulani.

It is unfortunate that the President has chosen to listen to flatterers like Kaliati. It is a mark of Mutharika’s leadership failure, I should say.

However—after Chilima’s speech at Nyambadwe, Blantyre, last week in full view of Mutharika—I still think all is not lost. As Dulani, a cynic, said: “It is never too late to change.”

You see, Chilima, whom my departed Ralph Tenthani always referred to as Angoni, publicly advised his boss, something quite new in our politics, that he is raising snakes within the party.

These snakes, arguably, come lying to Mutharika with grandmaster for 2019 yet DPP is only 20 percent of its term. To be honest, what all these snakes want is politics, not working for the public. The tragedy is that whatever happens in the 80 percent of DPP, it is Mutharika’s name, not of these snakes, that will bear the blame and shame.

In other words, Chilima was only underlining that all is not well within the party and advised his boss that the solution is not to organisepseudo-development rallies to attack Chakwera and Dulani. The two are outsiders and have nothing to do with the intra-party tussling for 2019 emerging in the party.

What a bold, frank and fearless veep, Peter Mutharika has in Saulos Chilima. Mr. President, you can ignore Chakwera and Dulani, but you cannot ignore Chilima. He is your biggest asset. Thanks

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One Comment

  1. This is what is called false equivalence. Dulani is not the opposite extreme of Kaliati. Kaliati is a joke, and the author is intelligent enough to realize that. But trying too hard to take a nonexistent middle road, he’s cutting APM some slack, portraying him as a victim of circumstances who cannot decide who, between Dulani and Kaliati, is worth listening to. Well, if he listens to the Kaliatis of this world even a little bit, then he is not fit to be a president.

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