Presidents have failed to work with deputies
Since the dawn of multiparty democracy in the country in 1990s, all four presidents that had or have an opportunity to power have failed to click with their vice-presidents.
Political commentators have mostly described the development as nothing but greed and lack of proper strategy by political parties to have a succession plan.
Chancellor College political analyst Boniface Dulani also said yesterday in an interview the problem is that the presidents typically consider their deputies as future threats, not present partners.
“Of course, these disagreements are worsened by the fact that the people in the ruling parties start to align themselves with either the president or his deputy which does not help matters,” he said.
University of Malawi’s Polytechnic lecturer and political analyst Chimwemwe Tsitsi yesterday faulted the process of selecting running mates as being the epitome of fall outs between presidents and their vice in the country.
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He said: “If you look carefully at this problem you will find that it starts from the fact that these partnerships are made out of convenience of politicians whose considerations mostly are based on attempts to win an election and not leading an administration.
“Mostly we have seen problems when a presidential candidate has picked a rank outsider to be on the presidential ticket. After the elections the president and other politicians usually want to push the vice-president out of the system.”
But Tsitsi pointed out that the Constitution was framed in a way that it should protect a vice-president from any attempts to dislodge him or her from office.
“It is unfortunate that these trends continue after having past examples of the same hence the need to change the political procedures in selecting candidates for the position of the vice president,” he added.
The presidents have always fallen out of grace with vice-presidents they choose themselves as running mates or are forced to be paired with. n
