My Diary

Standard set must be maintained

July 2 2020

The fresh presidential election came and went, with Tonse Alliance torchbearer Lazarus Chakwera and his UTM Party partner Saulos Chilima smiling all the way to the State House, vacating Peter Mutharika.

It is apparent that Mutharika and his running mate Atupele Muluzi are on the forefront discrediting that election. Among other things, as Muluzi would have it, the election was a complete sham, where even 15 of their monitors went missing. Where he got those details only goodness knows.

By taking oath of the highest executive office in the land, Chakwera sealed his allegiance to the motherland. The multitudes that voted for him gave him one term and condition: Deliver on your campaign promises.

We have seen in recent times that swearing to protect the Constitution is one thing, but acting on it is a daunting task. We have seen absolute power corrupting our leaders to obscene levels.

Once in power Chakwera started emptying his in-tray. He appointed for members of his cabinet, Felix Mlusu at finance, Modecai Msisha as Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Richard Chimwendo Banda as Minister of Homeland Security while his vice Chilima was appointed Minister Responsible for Economic Planning and Development and Public Sector Reforms. He also appointed several other top positions, including the Attorney General Chikosa Silungwe.

Msisha turned down the offer, as he feared it would look like he was being rewarded for leading Chakwera’s legal team in the elections case. Msisha joins Henry Chimunthu Banda to decline a ministerial appointment. It is a wonder if there is an unwritten law that ministerial appointees are not consulted before the appointment. It is my strong feeling that we inherited this from the one party State where a Cabinet appointment was the highest honour one could get from the Ngwazi and where declining would simply mean dissenting his wise and dynamic leadership.

In his speech, Chakwera didn’t only go at length to show that time is come for us to live the dream. Freedom, he conceded, is nothing if people are poor. In the tones of Martin Luther’s I Have a Dream and I Have Been to the Mountaintop speeches, Chakwera outlined that only a united nation will complete the walk to the promised land flowing with milk and honey.

It is everyone’s hope that we will not go back to Egypt soon. The pursuit of happiness is still at the core of our hearts. Chakwera and team should not think that Malawians will look aside when they act against the will of the people. As a matter of fact, we have played politics far too long and the time to act is now.

With the removal of boards for about 60 statutory corporations, it is the hope that those getting to those runges will be there to serve Malawians. What we have seen in the corporations is grievous. Corporations have acted like ruling party branches, where billions are siphoned by the ruling elite. We have seen corporation vehicles ferrying people to and from political rallies. As a matter of fact, some of them have forever been non-performers and Malawians have had to pay through the nose bail-outs.

It is the hope that his government will not have any sacred cows. There are so many lessons the MCP, UTM Party leadership can learn from the ancien regime. There is hope that we will be freed from the State capture before us.

The die is cast, and Chakwera has the heavy task of leading this nation from the dark and desolate valley of injustice, cronyism, rampant corruption and many more social issues.

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