No room for militant youths
It is an obvious fact that the strength of a ruling political party is not based on the amount of violence it unleashes against opposition parties and other people in the society. It is also equally true that political violence is usually started by people who have run out of ideas about how best they can run their parties. Therefore, if political parties want to build stable and strong parties, their leadership must condemn all manner of violence.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case in Malawi. Experience has shown that parties in power seem to think that their youths are mandated to be violent for their parties to be protected. The anomaly here is that some of the youths are so feared to the extent of even scaring political leadership as they seem to work as mercenaries between the leaders within the party. Sometimes this has caused big divisions in the party.
The problem with ruling party youth is that they do not wait for provocation before they respond with violence. Imagine, in most cases they are just irritated by the presence of other political members. They even overlook the fact that Malawi has a system of multiparty. Therefore, each party should be able to accommodate others.
Meanwhile, to prove that the militant youths are very adorable by the leadership they are given flamboyant names such as youth cadets, young democrats etc. Probably, this is to show that they are more important and useful, especially when it comes to defending the party.
In fact, wherever the militant youths in party colours are seen, people take cover. One wonders whether this is what party leaders want.
Surprisingly, the youth’s militant behaviour is not condemned by their parties. Instead, they are cheered and this is mostly so with the ruling party which wants to show its might all the times.
Recently, President Peter Mutharika was visiting Mangochi and over the same weekend MCP president Lazarus Chakwera had booked some venue in Mangochi to hold a party meeting. Unfortunately, for MCP, the DPP cadets went round removing MCP flags and burning them. Obviously, they did this on the assumption that, when the President is around no one else should claim allegiance to any other party except DPP. All sizes of MCP flags got burnt by DPP cadets in party uniform.
MCP had officially complained, but very doubtful if they will be given a listening ear, let alone, some condemnation from the DPP leadership. Surprisingly, even the police, which is supposed to provide homeland security, cannot dare to question the cadets. President Mutharika usually appeals to Malawians to maintain peace. This is simply a contradiction when the militant behaviour of the cadets seem to have been silently accepted by the DPP leadership.
Political leaders must be aware that accommodating militant youths can be very dangerous in a party. Some party members can use the youths to square up some scores with other members. The youths would be mercenaries and in the end destabilise the party.
Naturally, a divided party would be weak while the youths would be calling the shots. In the end, the party pays a high price for condoning violent youths.
Lastly, it is myopic to think that a political party can bepopular and strong by engaging youth militias to beat up other parties tosubmission. Youths themselves should also think it is time to turn around andnot waste time running unproductive errands of hate.
