Boni Dulani

Saying no to mediocrity: refusing to accept ‘bicycle ambulances’

2012-01-09T05:17:00.002-05:00

A story in the local Malawi media a few weeks back about the donation of 'bicycle ambulances' in Salima district got me thinking about how as a country we have come to accept and embrace mediocrity.

I must confess to being troubled by the increasing frequency of the donation of bicycles to be used as ambulances. In the 21^st century, it is both sad and shocking that any people should be using bicycles as ambulances. By definition, ambulances are supposed to provide primary care and quick transport to hospitals to those in need of urgent medical care. They are supposed to have life-saving equipment on board, managed by trained para-medics that provide a first line of medical assistance before one can be transported to be seen by a medical professional.

The idea of a 'bicycle ambulance', on the other hand, reduces the function of an ambulance service to mere transport for patients, albeit one without the requisite speed or comfort. Granted, ambulances in Malawi are very rarely used to provide urgent access to hospitals, with the possible exception of road accident victims.

Indeed, the definition of an ambulance in Malawi appears to be reduced to simply a vehicle that has a thick red cross painted on the sides. There are no phone numbers that people in need of urgent medical care can call to request an ambulance. Like their bicycle cousins, ambulances are simply a means of transport to or from a hospital. Most lack basic life-saving equipment on board. And off course there are no paramedics on board Malawi's ambulances.

More often than not, people only see ambulances in villages when they come to deliver dead bodies – a role that is meant for hearses, not ambulances. Many a time, ambulances are used to carry fee-paying passengers, even when they have patients or dead bodies on board, with the money going into the pockets of the drivers.

For a people that have no reliable access to ambulances or other means of transport to take patients to hospital, perhaps there is something to celebrate in receiving a bicycle ambulance. Indeed, in this day and age when fuel has become such a scarce commodity, perhaps bicycle ambulances are the way to go.

However, I still fail to see anything worth celebrating about the increasing trends of 'bicycle ambulance' donations. Several of Malawi's NGOs seem to have carved a niche in soliciting and handing out these foot-propelled 'ambulances'. If anyone outside Malawi wants to help the country, they should be told in no uncertain terms that Malawians need and deserve real ambulances. Bicycle ambulances do not belong to the 21^st century, in Malawi or anywhere for that matter. It is as simple as that. Even an ox-drawn cart can make a better hospital ride than a bicycle in my view.

That we celebrate these donations and make them to be such big events as happened in the Salima episode reflects sadly on our own acceptance of mediocrity. Perhaps this should come as no surprise. It all starts with our acceptance of mediocre leadership, which trickles down to many other areas, including poor quality buildings, poor roads, poor services to mention but a few.

Dec 9th, 2011

2011-12-12T18:52:00.000-05:00

Zonse zimatha nkukambirana? even on fuel? Let us get serious!!!

2011-11-23T23:33:00.000-05:00

The most hilarious joke I have heard about the ongoing fuel crisis in Malawi was not the story that the heat from the bright sun on the new Malawi flag has been so intense that it has caused all the fuel to evaporate from the country.
Yes, while I have had a number of good chuckles at the depictions of the long fuel queues by Malawi's ever creative cartoonists, these laughs have been overshadowed by the recent ministerial statement by Natural Resources, Energy and Environment Minister, Goodal Gondwe, on how government proposes to address the crisis. According to the Nation of Friday, November 18th, Gondwe told Parliament that one of the options being pursued by the Malawi government is "discussing with suppliers the possibility of buying the fuel using the local currency, the Kwacha, instead of the US Dollar as is the case now."
For a man that has had an illustrious career in many an international financial institutions, Gondwe's suggestion is so laughable as it amounts to no solution at all. If paying for fuel imports using the Kwacha was ever an option, Malawi would not have had this crippling fuel shortage in the first place.
If I may ask, why would the suppliers accept to be paid in Malawi Kwacha? What would they do with those Kwachas? Already, Malawians are struggling to find basic commodities to buy even when they have pocket-fulls of Kwacha currency.
And talking to Zimbabwean colleagues, this is exactly what happened at the start of their own economic collapse a few years back - people having bucket-loads of a local currency that could not buy them anything. So what fuel supplier in their right mind will accept to be paid in a currency that cannot buy anything? If this is the best solution we can come up with, then we should simply brace of even more difficult times ahead. The government meanwhile should simply admit they have failed to find a solution to this crisis, caused in large part of course because of their own inept policies and gross incompetence.
Mr. Gondwe's proposal for discussion seems to be reflective of a wider approach to decision making in this government - thinking we can solve our problems, most of our own making, by using the old-age Malawi adage that "zonse zimatha nkukambiriana" - everything can be resolved through discussions.
While a lot can be gained through discussions, we have to realize that mere talking without addressing the underlying concerns that led to some of the problematic relationships will not do. Going to the World Bank and the IMF with the sob-story that Malawi is hurting without addressing the concerns that led to the suspension of the Extended Credit Facility, ECF, in the first place is just wishful thinking. Merely meeting donors and asking them to resume aid when we have taken zero steps in addressing the concerns that led to the suspension of aid in the first place reflects a mypoia of the highest order.
Let us act and address the challenges and concerns that got us into the current situation. We can then have something to discuss. Until then, Mr Gondwe and your likes, you are increasingly being revealed to be the jokers that you are.

2011 COMESA Summit: a gathering of tyrants

2011-10-15T11:12:00.000-04:00

Consider this: Four of the five Heads of state that attended the just ended COMESA heads of state summit come from countries that are ranked as NOT FREE by Freedom House, which asseses the democratic standing of countries on two composite indices of political rights and civil liberties (see Freedom House's 2011 "Freedom in the World 2011"). Here is the full list:
Burundi: 5 (Partly free)
Eritrea: 7 (Not free)
Sudan: 7 (Not free)
Swaziland: 6 (Not free)
Zimbabwe: 6 (Not free)

In other words, the Heads of states that bothered to come to to Malawi for the just ended COMESA summit trend towards dictators presiding over countries that have extremely low political rights and civil liberties scores. As a matter of fact, two of the Presidents attending the Lilongwe meeting (Al Bashir and Isaias Afawerki) come from countries that have the lowest possible score on the Freedom House ranking of 7. Both are cited in the 2011 report as being among the world's most unfree countries, with Eritrea described as an "increasingly repressive police state."
The only country with a presidential delegation at the Lilongwe summit that can claim to come from a somewhat tolerant society is Burundi, whose uninspiring score of 5 falls among the category of countries rated as "Partly Free".
And if anyone is interested to see where these countries rank on the Mo Ibrahim Governance Index, I suggest you start looking from the bottom of the list and go upwards - you will save a lot of time that way. Swaziland is the highest ranked country on the Index, at number 26 among 53 African countries. The rest are: Burundi (37), Eritrea (47), Sudan (48) and Zimbabwe (51).
Given how hard President Bingu wa Mutharika has worked hard to join the exclusive club of African dictators, I am tempted to opine that the 2011 Lilongwe COMESA summit serves as an endorsement of Mutharika's acceptance into this exclusive club of African dictators. While the presidents that represent COMESA's more progressive democracies have shied away from getting their democratic credentials tainted by associating with Mutharika, the dictators of the COMESA grouping have felt a natural attraction and have joined their Malawi colleague to cement his entry into the club..

Cry, my beloved Malawi

2011-10-07T15:46:00.000-04:00

I spent a few weeks in Malawi in the month of September. It was great to be home and to see family and friends after an unusually lengthy break. It was also an opportunity to work on some outstanding projects at home before taking on some new work responsibilities.
I was impressed with how resolute Lecturers at Chancellor College remain in the struggle for Academic Freedom. On a couple of occasions, I walked in solidarity with my colleagues as they took part in their daily freedom walk around the Chirunga campus and sang the abridged version of the national anthem.
I also had the opportunity to watch the Malawi Flames take on Tunisia in an Africa Cup of Nations soccer qualifier game at the Kamuzu Stadium. It is perhaps a reflection of how far Malawi soccer has advanced (well, the national team version that is) that most people came home disappointed with a 0-0 result against one of the giants of African soccer.
Sadly, there were so many challenging encounters that made me somewhat happy to leave it all behind. Driving to Neno on one of the worst roads imaginable or to Nakhunda in Zomba on a road that has no right to be in a city (if one believes the bill board on the road side from Zomba to Nankhunda) made me wonder what stuff the President and his cronies are smoking when they say Malawi has made so much development progress.
The constant struggle for fuel - where the only reliable source of diesel is Tsangano turn off- or the frustrating lack of forex in the country, just demonstrated how challenging life has become in my beloved Malawi. This is not even to mention the high and ever increasing price of commodities.
Now to hear of extra judicial killings of innocent demonstrators and student activists while the defenders of the regime froth on their mouths with a lot of stupid diatribes; a clue-less civil society that appears to care more about preserving their jobs than standing up for the ordinary citizen, I dread to think where my beloved Malawi will be in a year's time.
A failed leadership, an apathetic public, an incompetent civil society can only translate into a failed state. That is what Malawi has become.

Questioning Vuwa Kaunda's understanding of patriotism

2011-08-09T14:39:00.000-04:00

Vuwa Kaunda's response to the decision by the Hunger Project to withdraw the 2011 Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger from Bingu wa Mutharika was predictable - the guys currently entrusted with leading Malawi seem to have lost all sense of hearing.
But what I found laughable is Vuwa's argument that the Malawians who signed a petition urging the Hunger project to withdraw the award are unpatriotic.
From its Greek and Latin origins, the word patriotism represents a devotion to one's country. Loyalty and devotion to an individual do not count. Yet, the Vuwa Kaundas of this world have time and again demonstrated that their loyalty and devotion is to the person of Mutharika, a man who is single-handedly causing untold and unprecedented ruin on Malawi. This is not patriotism Mr. Kaunda. The true patriots are those Malawians that have shed their blood for the country, not those who have shed that blood on behalf of Mutharika. The true patriots are those Malawians who urged the Hunger Project to rescind their offer in fear that it will give the President more ammunition to govern the country as a personal estate and bring further ruin.

Thanks, but no thanks to another Muluzi or Mutharika

2011-08-09T14:18:00.000-04:00

The recent manoeuvrings for the presidential candidature for the 2014 elections in Malawi by Peter Mutharika and Atupele Muluzi have reminded me of one of my earliest blog posts where I e ndorsed the then Senator Barack Obama as my preferred candidate for the US presidency. In that post, I pointed out that:

"I am reluctant to lend my support to Hilary Clinton on one count and one count alone: in a country of nearly 300 million people, I cannot be convinced that there are only two households that can produce Presidents...."

To hear that the DPP, as predicted, has endorsed Peter Mutharika as the party's candidate to succeed his brother, Bingu wa Mutharika, while Atupele Muluzi, son to former President Bakili Muluzi, is seriously contemplating to contest for the state presidency, brings back to mind the same notion that made me reject Hilary Clinton's candidature. While I have nothing personal against Atupele Muluzi or Peter Mutharika, I refuse to accept the underlying perception that out of the 13 million plus Malawians, only the Muluzis and Mutharikas are capable of producing presidential caliber individuals.
If truth be told, the Muluzi era, which was characterized by mismanagement, corruption and incompetency, will count among Malawi's lost years. As for the Bingu years, need I say more? As they say, the works of his hands speak for themselves - murder of innocent Malawians, long fuel queues, deprivation of academic freedom, forex shortages, arrogance and corruption of the grandest scale - are showing that he is not only out of touch with reality, but also that his style of leadership does not belong to a Malawi of the 21st century. And for some to claim they want Peter Mutharika to continue his brother's legacy is, in my considered opinion, pure lunacy.
The long and short of this post is that if Atupele and Peter- who admittedly have to be judged in their own merit, not by the performance of their fathers or brothers - stand for presidential office in 2014, I would, on principle, not vote for them. Malawi belongs to us all, not just for families of Kamuzu Banda, Bakili Muluzi or Bingu wa Mutharika. I would rather we looked elsewhere among the millions of my country-folk for a new leadership. This is no guarantee that we would get a better leader, but we would be giving others the opportunity to captain the ship. So, nothing personal about Atupele Muluzi or Peter Mutharika, but thanks, but no thanks.

Bingu and his government have lost legitimacy

2011-07-20T11:31:00.000-04:00

The recent callous and nonchalant way the Bingu government has handled itself over citizens frustrations, just goes to demonstrate how far removed the administration is from identifying with the struggles that ordinary Malawians are facing. It is so maddening to hear Bingu wa Mutharika talk about a Malawi as a success story when people are queuing for fuel; factories are remaining idle because they cannot import raw materials due to the forex shortages; hospitals cannot provide even the most basic medication because of a biting shortage of drugs; more people are turning to burning charcoal and wood because electricity is being rationed; streams have become the primary water sources because the water boards cannot provide adequate water; University students are remaining idle for months becuase the President and his Police feel it is right to place spies in lecture rooms; the list is longer. And yet the President and his sorry-group of hand clappers appear so oblivious and think the suffering Malawians can buy his picture of a Malawi full of roses!
It is obvious Bingu and his cast of sycophants are living in an alternative dream world, a lala-land so far removed from reality. To hear these syncomphats from the public media and the DPP (I now refuse to call the DPP the ruling party because it seems to have stopped governing - it has just been reduced to praise singing for Bingu) makes my blood boil. Simply put, Mutharika and his cronies can no longer claim to genuinely represent the people of Malawi.
Now, the cowardly attempts by the government and its agents to prevent Malawians from exercising their right to demonstrate (as provided for under Section 38 of the Malawi Constitution) has further demonstrated the widening gulf between those who are governing and the governed. Indeed, the spontaneous outbreak of violence across the country make Blessings Chinsinga's ill-fated lecture about how policy failures by government can cause extreme public disaffection sound prophetic. When governments fail to fulfill their side of the democratic bargain, the link between the governing and governed is irreparably broken. The only option for the people then is to take matters into their own hands.
A goverment that relies on force to frustrate the people's aspirations, to take away their constitutionally guranteed rights through dubious decisions handed in the middle of the night, has lost legitimacy and can no longer claim the right to govern. The authority to govern, as provided for under Section 6 of the Malawi Constitution derives from the people and is to be used solely to protect and promote their interests, not the interests of one man or a particular ruling clique. And because democracy is government pro-tempore, once the link between the rulers and the ruled has been broken, as it has in our present case, the country needs to move in a different direction. Malawi, as I wrote in my previous post, is bigger than Bingu and his cronies. It is indeed bigger than any of us. We will all die and be gone but Malawi will still be there. To provide that opportunity for Malawi to move on without being ruined, Bingu and his cronies need to go. now.

In Support of the demonstrations against bad governance in Malawi

2011-07-15T22:14:00.000-04:00

Due to more pressing engagements, I have been unable to update this blog in the last month.
However, I would like to register my support for my countrymen planning to go out on the streets to demonstrate against the poor governance record of Bingu wa Mutharika, whose arrogance, myopia and incompetence are bringing untold miseries on the innocent Malawi folk.
Mutharika is but one man. The thirteen million other Malawians deserve a better leadership that can work in their interests. Down with this dictatorship.

Ranking the Performance of African Presidents - The Evidence from recent Afrobarometer Surveys

2011-06-15T23:16:00.027-04:00

I have been meaning to post this article for while but never got down to doing it.The piece was motivated by the drama at the start of the year that followed the release of the East African Magazine's rankings of the performance ratings of African Presidents. Malawi's President, Bingu wa Mutharika, came a respectable 17^thposition out of 52 presidents that were ranked. Personally, I thought the grade "C" rating accorded to Mutharika was most generous.
That said, the East African Magazine article had a number of flaws. The one that jumped out the most was the mixing of both ceremonial and full executive presidents in the rankings, despite the fact that the former wield very little power. In some cases, such as Morocco and Swaziland, the rankings rated the performance of monarchs. Surprisingly, in the Kingdom of Lesotho, the ranking was for Prime Minister Bethuel Mosisili instead of King Letsie III. In a nutshell, the East African rankings were a mixed bag of apples, oranges and even peaches that were being passed off as one and the same thing.
An alternative way to rate the performance of African leaders is to ask the ordinary people themselves on how they assess the performance of their leaders. Granted such ratings would differ depending on country-specific circumstances, but to the extent that such assessments are what influence decisions during elections, they can serve as more objective pointers than the subjective ratings of 'experts' that are far removed from the reality on the ground.
Fortunately, the availability of Afrobarometer Survey data makes it possible for us to start to track and compare popular assessments of the performance of African presidents. So I went back and looked at the data from the most recent Afrobarometer Surveys (conducted in 20 countries between 2008 and 2009) to compare responses to the following question:
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way the following people have performed their jobs over the past twelve months, or haven't you heard enough about them to say: President (name)"?
The 2008 surveys covered a total of 20 countries, 19 of whom have executive presidents. In the following table, I combine the responses for strongly approve and approve to gauge the proportion of respondents that expressed approval for the performance of the leaders in the 19 presidential-regime countries.

Ranking	Name of President	Country	Approval Rating (%)
1	Jakaya Kikwete	Tanzania	89
2=	Ian Khama	Botswana	88
2=	Hifikepunye Pohamba	Namibia	88
4	Bingu wa Mutharika	Malawi	83
5	Armando Guebuza	Mozambique	82
6=	John Kufuor	Ghana	78
6=	Marc Ravalomanana.	Madagascar	78
8	Marc Yayi Boni	Benin	75
9	Blaisé Compaore	Burkina Faso	71
10	Musa Yar' Adua	Nigeria	70
11=	Mwai Kibaki	Kenya	66
11=	Yoweri Museveni	Uganda	66
13	Ellen Johnson Sirleaf	Liberia	63
14	Amadou Toumani Touré	Mali	57
15	Thabo Mbeki	South Africa	55
16	Pedro Pires	Cape Verde	50
17	Rupiah Banda	Zambia	37
18	Abdoulaye Wade	Senegal	28
19	Robert Mugabe	Zimbabwe	24

*These rankings do not imply that highly rated presidents are more democratic than those ranked at the bottom end of the list, although it is tempting to make such a case when looking at the countries at the top and the bottom of the rankings (there is actually a strong correlation between the two).
*It is also important to note that the Afrobarometer Surveys were conducted between 2008 and 2009. The approval ratings should be looked at from this time specificity as it is highly likely that the figures have changed in response to changing circumstances. In some cases, some of the leaders have left office (Mbeki, Kufour) while Nigeria's Yar'Adua has since passed.

Kikwete: first among 19

*It is interesting to note that Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete is atop the Afrobarometer rankings when he only scores a modest B- ranking in the East African Magazine rankings, where he comes 10th. Meanwhile, Cape Verde's Pedro Pires only gets a 50% approval rating in the Afrobarometer Surveys, coming number 16 of 19. This is in sharp contrast to the love he receives from the expert rankings used in the East African Magazine, where he was rated as Africa's number 2 leader.

*Malawi's Bingu wa Mutharika was rated as the fourth best president in the list of 19 in 2008. This was translated into Mutharika's landslide victory in the elections of 2009. Whether he continues to enjoy these high approval ratings in 2011 remains to be seen (Afrobarometer will be conducting another survey in Malawi sometime in 2012).

Not much home love for Mugabe

*Rupiah Banda in Zambia (37% approval In 2008) faces a major battle to win over the approval of more of his country-folk as he seeks a second term of office in elections scheduled for later this year. Hopefully he has used the last three years meaningfully!
*Robert Mugabe's approval rating of 24% is the lowest among the 19 presidents. His fellow Octogenarian, Abdulaye Wade did not fare much better either, with a 28% approval rating.

*Next time, I will look at this data more closely and look at other issues such as popular trust of presidents and perceptions of corruption by the presidency and officials in his/her office.

Re: Revisiting the issue of Maximum age limit for the presidency

2011-04-26T20:37:00.002-04:00

Regular readers of the blog will recall this article that I posted in August of last year. The recent decision by the government of Bingu wa Mutharika to expel the British High Commissioner from the country makes it worth re-posting this article in its entirety, with an addendum at the end - Boni

Let us revisit the issue of Maximum age limit for the presidency

Examining initially the gross changes which occur in the brain with ageing, it can be observed that the normal volume and weight of the adult brain begins to decrease from about 50 years of age. This is due to a reduction in the number of cells in a wide area of the brain: the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus, the substantia nigra, and the cerebellum....". - Martin Blanchard

Some years back, I presented a paper at the Constitutional Review Conference a comparative assessment on the Presidency in Malawi (the paper can be accessed at this link). One of the topics I touched on in that presentation was whether Malawi should consider introducing a maximum age limit for the office of President. Although there were many issues that I touched on (and a few that I would like want to take back), the topic of a maximum age limit elicited the most comments and discussion during the conference. I found it interesting that while many justified the retention of the minimum age limit of 35 on account that one's mental faculties are not fully developed to be President before this age, the proposal for a maximum age limit was resoundingly shot down (although in a later anonymous survey of key political leaders, there was overwhelming support for such a limit).

Anyway, why bring this issue up again now? Much as I respect our traditions and value the wisdom that comes with old age, I am sorry to say, a series of decisions and pronouncements by our President has started to make me wonder if he is not losing it.
During the period 2004 and 2009, the president made a number of rather wacky decisions that we thought could be explained by the pressure of working in a political environment dominated by a very pesky opposition (which by the way, he rubbished on numerous occasions).

Some groups of people were accused of plotting a coup against him, while yet others, including the presidents' predecessor, Bakili Muluzi and his one-time deputy, Cassim Chilumpha, among others, were accused and charged with treason for allegedly planning to assassinate him. Civil society leaders, the media, the judiciary, among others, have all been accused of one thing or another and publicly chastised by the President. Those of us in academia were similarly dressed down, warned by the man that he could replace us all on a count of three. Business leaders have also not been spared (remember how some CEOs of tobacco companies were deported from the country for disobeying the President's unilateral price fixations?)

Despite getting a commanding legislative majority after the 2009 general elections, Mutharika's eccentric behaviour seems to get from bad to worse. Perhaps we should have seen the warning signs earlier when he embraced the establishment of the Mulhako wa Alhomwe to champion the course of one ethnic group instead of becoming a champion of the all-inclusive ethnicity of 'Malawi'. A few months back he not only ordered the re-introduction of the quota system for university selection, but he offered a rather bizarre justification for this policy by making unsubstantiated allegations about some corner of the Chancellor College campus!
In recent times, he has spearheaded the change of the national flag under the false illusion that Malawi has transited from the dawn of development to a full blown developed nation deserving of a full sun. Those of us who have been critical of the flag change have meanwhile been ridiculed as drunkards - talk of irony!

The President is also not content with silencing critics and trumping on the already weak opposition. Instead, he has gone further to embarrass its leadership by ordering a significant reduction in the salary of the Leader of Opposition. This was followed by the decision to bring his wife into cabinet (despite the initial protestations, the recent discolure that she's getting paid millions of tax-payers Kwachas for doing charity work just underscores the fact that her inclusion on the cabinet list was not an error in the first place).
In between, he has tried to incite mob action by not only calling for the deportation of the couple whose dog bit the family's long-serving guard, but he has also tried to frame the matter within the context of race (never mind that dogs are almost colour blind!). Malawi's traditional donors too have borne the blunt of the President's hallucinations. Oh, and by the way, his current deputy - handpicked by none other than the president himself - seems to be falling out of favour (and her predecessor too suffered a similar fate)
Given that there is now no opposition to worry about, why does our President continue to see ghosts where there are none? Why can't a man in his final term of office not seek to build a legacy of a unifier instead of the increasingly divisive character he has become?

Addendum:
Add to the list I compiled in August last year to even more bizarre decisions by the President in recent times:

Building and opening a 'port' in Nsanje before carrying out a feasibility study and without liaising properly with Mozambique, where a significant proportion of the water way lies
Ordering his supporters to 'deal' with his critics
Decreeing K2m deposits for demonstrators
Ordering the Inspector General of Police not to apologize to University of Malawi academics (could we speculate that he must have ordered the IG to summon Chinsinga in the first place?)
Ordering University Lecturers to get back to work, even if he has no legal powers to do so
Paying his wife millions of tax-payers Kwachas to his wife for doing charity work
Ordering the deportation of the British High Commissioner, despite widespread condemnation and advice of many not to do so.
We could add several issues to this list, such as the decision to withhold funding for his predecessors' medical bills; the recent scam at Malawi Housing Corporation where the president's brother got a house for a song; the decision to relocate the University of Science and technology from Lilongwe to the President's farm at Ndata...I am sure there are many other similar wacky decisions that I have forgotten

As we all get older, sadly, we all begin to lose our mental capacities. This is a fact of science. It is perhaps high time we considered bringing back the maximum age limit. But then, as someone once said, every mad man thinks that everyone else is mad. It is perhaps my own madness that makes me think that our country's politics is being led by mad people.

Reflections from reading William Kamkwamba's Story

2011-04-17T19:16:00.010-04:00

For a change, I read something with very little political content this past week- William Kamkwamba's "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind". (There is some politics in the book, as William freely shows his admiration for the Banda and Mutharika governments while showing his open disdain for the Muluzi regime, but that is a minor part of the overall story).

I have to say it has been very heartwarming to read William's story instead of the usual depressing stories about Malawi politics and the self-centred individuals who populate the Malawi political stage.

William's is a moving story and one that has received commentary in far more influential sites than this humble blog. But it is a moving read, a story that serves as a demonstration of what is possible despite the great obstacles that many of Malawian peoples encounter every day. In William's case, he shows great determination and overcame great obstacles in the quest to realize his dreams...drought and the subsequent hunger and starvation visited on his family and community in Wimbe, Kasungu; being forced to drop out of school because of lack of school fees; an un-supportive community who took his explorations on creating a windmill as a sign of madness. Against all these odds, here was William, a young boy that could hardly read or speak English and certainly not schooled in the physics of electricity generation, who still demonstrated his natural brilliance to come up with his invention and generate light for his home by simply looking at pictures from a library book .
In a country where very few have access to electricity from an unreliable power grid, William's ingenuity offers an important lesson in that there are many Malawian geniuses of his calibre that are capable of coming up with local solutions to Malawi's myriad development challenges. Just imagining what is possible if all the William Kamkwambas of Malawi could be given support to unleash their creativity....no more unsafe drinking water; no more reliance on imported fertilizers; maybe some car designers that can build new cars locally and turn us into an exporting nation....some coming up with new medicines to cure us from disease and share with others outside Malawi the fruits of their discovery...the possibilities are infinite.
Sadly, the limited opportunities in our education system which prevents many William Kwamkwambas from emerging and nurturing their potential means that many inventors are out there that are not afforded the opportunities to invent. Yet, William's story teaches us more than the potential that Malawi has: it also tells us that despite countless obstacles, it is still possible to dream and translate those dreams into reality. Though belated, William, I salute you and am proud to count myself as your fellow Malawian.

The World is Watching Mr President Mutharika - Change

2011-04-06T16:43:00.006-04:00

From the Editorial entitled "Wake up wa Mutharika" in Mmegi newspaper of Botswana, April 6, 2011:

"Mr president it is most outrageous of you to say that demonstrations are a privilege and that you want demonstrators to pay between K2.5 million to K5 million (P108,300-P542,000) to stage a demonstration. From what is happening in the Arab world, you know what happens to leaders who repress the human soul. Finally we call on you Mr president to respect the rule of law. The wanton disregard for court orders by your regime is proof that you have derailed in a big way. It is time for you to introspect and go back to the people of Malawi with a view to making amends. Our brothers and sisters in Malawi and SADC cannot afford to have a failed state and it is upon you to ensure that they will not"

read the entire comment on the Mmegi Online website at:
Mmegi Online: Wake up wa Mutharika

...and let he who has ears hear!!

Bordering on Giving Up....

2011-03-13T11:36:00.002-04:00

I have very fond memories growing up in the Thyolo Tea plantations, running to school in the mist of cold mornings in our green and khaki school uniforms...
Now, because someone with questionable sanity usurped the trust of Malawians and turned it into a tool for nepotism, all of us Thyolo people are being caricatured as nepotistic individuals. In the spirit of the old Chewa proverb, nsomba ikaola imodzi, zonse zaola (when one fish is rotten in the basket, chances are all are rotten), all of us Lomwe people from Thyolo are- understandably - painted in the same brush.
One wonders what the future holds for the current generation of young minds currently running to their schools in the same tea plantations we used to wonder in days gone by: Will they forever be perceived in the lens of their ethnicity? Will they be trusted again? Will they have to pay for the sins of this our generation? Will they be given the opportunities we have been fortunate to have?
The pronouncements of the Man who is supposed to be Chancellor of the University of Malawi and his defence of the Inspector General's despicable actions, makes our jobs all the more difficult. I am sure it makes the job of the professional managers of the University more difficult as his pronouncements and decrees make dialogue impossible. Or does he really care?
Now, I am beginning to question, do I want to go back to that? How can I seriously go and stand in front of my students and have to censor what I teach? Indeed, Can I even go back when my closest friend and colleague has been as badly treated as Blessings has been? Indeed, are our services even needed at all?
One thing I know for sure is that I will not give in to threats. Like my colleagues, I refuse to be intimidated.
I am passionate about my country. It has given me so much and there is not enough I can give back in return....But maybe, it is time to reconsider whether the country needs what little I have to offer. Maybe I should start looking at those classified ads sections again and look for opportunities elsewhere?

Of clueless and incompetent Cabinet Ministers- Peter Mutharika and George Chaponda among the most incompetent

2011-03-06T11:32:00.005-05:00

I don't usually criticize Malawi Cabinet Ministers. This is not because they do a great job- far from it. The simple truth is that over the years, I have come to expect very little from them. Why else would I expect so much from a bunch whose primary qualification appears to be their ability to shout the most in praising the President and showing up at each and every presidential function? Coupled with the fact that ours is a politics where the president wields so much power and influence that non-performance of government ministries and departments is always blamed on the president and not the responsible ministers?
I should add here that this is not a new tradition. In the first year of Malawi's independence, the country's first president, the late Hastings Kamuzu Banda, demonstrated his strong intolerance for independent minds in his Cabinet when he crashed with a group of progressive political upstarts such as Henry Chipembere, Kanyama, Yatuta Chisiza, Orton Chirwa, Willie Chokani and others and dismissed them from his Cabinet. In the years that followed, Banda's presidency thrived on the appointment of praise-singers into Cabinet, with Ministers fighting to be seen as the loudest and most noteworthy hero-worshippers of Banda.
Although Bakili Muluzi's tenure as president in the mid 1990s started off with the appointment of what could be considered as a truly meritocratic cabinet, he very quickly fell back into the old trap of seeking to place the presidency at the centre stage of Malawi politics. Merit was soon abandoned and replaced with political expediency. Like his predecessor, Muluzi began to appoint individuals on the basis of their ability praise him.
Exit Muluzi, enter Mutharika. At his first swearing in ceremony in 2004, Mutharika intimated that he would only appoint individuals into cabinet on merit. However, over time, this has been nothing more than mere rhetoric. Instead Mutharika has continued with the tradition of appointing praise-singers into Cabinet while ostracizing those that are perceived as political threats. As a result, we find individuals such as Charles Mchacha, Billy Kaunda, Vuwa Kaunda, Aaaron Sangala, Nicholas Dausi, among others, becoming permanent features of Cabinet while the likes of Goodal Gondwe, the late Moses Chirambo, among others, faced the chop. I dare say if one Roy Comsy was still an MP, he would have been one of the bozos retained in the Mutharika Cabinet!
Anyway, I therefore need to be excused for not having high expectations of Malawi's Cabinet Ministers. Even when so many commentators took the view that Mutharika's new Cabinet after the 2009 elections included highly learned and qualified individuals, I still took a deem view. And if the truth is to be told, some of the disappointments have been exactly the supposedly very learned Ministers.
Among the worst disappointments, in my view, is one George Chaponda. Despite his acclaimed academic qualifications, Chaponda's incompetency continues to befuddle the mind. This is an individual who, as Minister of Local Government in 2006, said Local Government Elections were unnecessary because the absence of councillors was not being felt. For a Minister who was appointed to champion local government, such myopia was unforgivable to the extent that I and my colleague, Harold Ngalawa, called for his immediate resignation in our Sunday Times of 28th May 2006. Of course, Chaponda never resigned and continued to enjoy the confidence and trust of his boss, Bingu wa Mutharika.
So the fact that in recent times, Chaponda has 'fouled' Malawi's image by wrongly suggesting that the provision on fouling the air that was part of the recent local courts bill included the banning of farting did not come as a surprise to me. It was frankly terrible that an entire Minister of Justice did not read the bill which had already been circulated to Members of Parliament by his own Ministry. This spectacle not only demonstrated the casual approach that we have in making laws, but it also goes to shed some insights into the laissez-faire attitude of Cabinet in fulfilling its responsibilities. In a normal world, Chaponda would have tabled the bill in Cabinet for extensive discussions. Only when cabinet was satisfied should the bill have been sent for debate in Parliament. And yet, when the line minister had not read the bill, it beggars belief to think that the other Cabinet Members bothered to read it either or that there was any deliberation over it in Cabinet. But, well, Chaponda still enjoys the confidence of his boss, never mind the embarrassment he has caused to the country.
Chaponda's incompetence however, pales in significance compared to that of the man he swapped ministries with, Peter Mutharika, currently the Minister of Education. This supposedly second coming of Moses, as we are being made to believe, comes across to me not only as aloof, but also clueless of what is going on in his ministry. While students at both Chancellor College and the Polytechnic have been out demonstrating over unpaid allowances; my fellow academics at Chancellor College get besieged by the Police; primary school teachers are in revolt over a poorly thought of policy on hardship allowances - the younger Mutharika goes on to claim that he he has no knowledge about what is happening at the colleges and about the striking primary school teachers.
Given that these events have received wide media coverage, I can only assume that the fact that Peter Mutharika knows nothing about them means the guy cannot read and has no advisors to read on his behalf. For someone who professes to be an Academic, the younger Mutharika's handling of events in the Education Ministry has been nothing but a disaster. He could, for example, have intervened very quickly when the Inspector General of Police unwisely decided to interrogate my friend and colleague, Blessings Chinsinga over the content of his lectures. This issue could have been quickly defused if this supposed Professor of Law jumped in and defended his fellow academics from the attempts of Mukhito to take Malawi back to the dark days of interference of academic freedom.
A forward looking Minister of Education should have foreseen that the policy of discriminatory payments of hardship allowances to teachers was bound to cause problems when all teachers in the country- including both those in urban and rural settings- are grossly underpaid. One could make the argument for example, that urban teachers need more resources to cover their rentals and the generally higher cost of living there compared to rural areas. Instead of this stupid policy, government could have offered some forms of general allowances, such as chalk allowance (teachers), risk allowances (medical staff) payable to all civil servants in these lines of work.
But maybe this is expecting too much from a man that we are supposed to coronate as our new Brother President come 2014. You would think Malawi has other better qualified and more competent people than these jokers. Perhaps the fact that the younger Mutharika, despite his obvious limited leadership abilities, is the best that Malawi has to offer, is no more than a reflection of the intellectual limits of the country? I wonder.

Politics of Poverty of Ideas: With Guest Author, Blessings Chinsinga

2011-02-21T18:11:00.011-05:00

Blessings is still talking. Not even the recent police threats will silence him. Meanwhile, Lecturers at Chancellor College have demonstrated their solidarity with Blessings and also refuse to be silenced. Elsewhere, it in the world, Dictators are on notice. The people will neither be silenced nor will they be cowed. "Vox populi est Vox Dei:" - the voice of the People is the Voice of God.
The following piece from Blessings appeared in the Sunday Times of February 20, 2011. BD

The Poverty Of Ideas

Ideas are at the heart of progress in any sphere of endeavour. Without ideas, the world would virtually come to a standstill. However, ideas have to be competitive in order to steer progress. Any attempt to ‘monotholize’ ideas is disastrous. Even at an individual level, such an attempt can only result in stagnation, if not retrogression.

This reminds me of what one of our Reverends at Zomba CCAP used to say in most of his sermons and I quote “each individual is a walking civil war”. In other words, an individual is a bundle of contradictions which in the final analysis in an epitome of progress. To sin or not sin, one engages in some kind of debate. Rarely is sin not a product of rather protracted debates in our minds.

Ideas are particularly powerful in the world of politics. The evolution of political systems from monarchies through autocracies to democracies is a product of an open contestation of ideas. As Plato would argue, no political order is stable. In his conception of the paradigm of the cycle of change, Plato argues that no political system, even the so called mature democracies, is perfect. People are always searching for the best possible state of society that can harness their creativity to the fullest for meaningful and dignified lives.

This inevitable because according to Plato each society is beholden to the law of degeneracy. The degree to which the law of degeneracy embattles society is very much dependent on whether it entertains is a free market place for ideas or not. The free flow and let alone contestation of ideas allows a society to constantly renew itself. In other words, a society is constantly adjusting itself to new sets equilibria which allows it to fully exploit its potential.

Not many societies would claim to have reached such a stage. It is, of course, not difficult to do so but many leaders deliberately choose to frustrate progress by claiming monopoly of wisdom. They pretend they know it all. Even when the script is clearly off track, they are bold enough to project themselves as having all answers to the problems being experienced. And while some of the challenges are clearly beyond their grasp most of them are ironically self made.

There cannot only be one truth. This is evident even in the current thinking about development. In the era of post-modernism, there is no a universal path to development and prosperity. We can no longer talk of development but rather developments. This clearly underlies the primacy of the free market of ideas as a precursor of development and progress.

Consequently, a society that does not entertain alternative ideas, and in which the leadership projects itself as all knowing, catches up with the law of degeneracy rather rapidly. The decay is even much faster if a regime resorts to suppressing alternative ideas either covertly or overtly.

A regime that suppresses alternative ideas surely digs its own grave. Progress comes to a halt since this tendency creates a generalized and undefined sense of anxiety in the body politic which breeds fear and lack of self drive and innovation. The consequence is a culture of conformism which is an antithesis of progress. People simply do things to please the powers that be and not to take society to greater heights.

A society needs fresh ideas, debate and engagement at all levels in order to deal with pressing issues successfully. It becomes worrisome when there is clearly less tolerance to question the norms and values underpinning a society’s democracy. Invariably, universities suffer enormous decline as places for intellectual engagement and debates. They become centres of regurgitation instead of nodes for critical thinking which takes away from society the ability for Socratic questioning, accountability and responsibility.

As the law of degeneracy takes its toll, the public intellectual retreats especially if a regime falls prey to Macheviallian political tactics. Public intellectuals simply shut down. When we talk of public intellectuals, we are not talking only about those with links to institutions of higher learning.

Public intellectuals are everywhere. You can get them from all possible walks of life. They are in civil society, public service, private sector and even at community levels. These are simply individuals who are gifted with thinking outside the box. They are sources of new ideas that drive progress in various realms of life. Society benefits from engaging with their ideas in a civilized fashion even when they dare the mainstream thinking.

When public intellectuals shut down, a society experiences systemic failure. This is what ultimately breeds politics of poverty of ideas which is quite dangerous. There is often no going back even when it is very clear that a society is headed on an outright regressive trajectory. A society invariably finds itself stuck in an auto pilot mode since people are rewarded for conformity and dressed down for taking initiative that appears to threaten the status quo even when it is in the best interest of society.

Public intellectuals are indispensable since their role is to suggest alternatives, to make comparisons, to question orthodoxies, to interrogate motives so that an informed debate on public issues can take place. However, for this to happen, a society needs a new mindset, attitude and renewed energy besides progressive leadership.

Leaders have an important role to play in this revolution. Not any other type of leadership though; it requires a leadership that is well versed with the servant paradigm of leadership and genuinely believes in it. Primarily, incumbents must view leadership as a service to be provided to the people and not something to be exploited for selfish gains.

Not until then can leadership boldly challenge their followers that they cannot trade their nationality for any other place because their country is the best place on earth. This was a hit in Barack Obama’s recent State of Union address. How many leaders can boldly emulate Obama? Surely I can count them on my palm.

Mutharika's dictatorship hits a new low: Unima's Blessings Chinsinga summoned by Inspector General of Police

2011-02-12T14:16:00.009-05:00

Things continue to get worse in Malawi on the governance front. The arrogance and disregard of the rule of law and people's rights demonstrated by the Mutharika regime continues unabated. This is despite recent donor actions to suspend aid due to poor governance as well as crippling shortages of fuel, forex, water and electricity, to mention but a few ills.
Now it has just come to my attention that my good friend and occasional contributor to this blog, Blessings Chinsinga, was this morning (12 February, 2011) summoned to appear before the Inspector General of Malawi Police to respond to allegations that he has been inciting students to demonstrate against the government.
Needless to say I am so mad to hear this story and enraged that the Bingu government is sinking so low as to threaten University academics with serious yet unfounded accusations. In any case, the right to demonstrate is enshrined under Section 38 of the Malawi Constitution so it should be no crime to even contemplate organizing one (as indeed is happening with the Monday demonstration organized by HRCC and others). To his credit, Blessings, is taking a more philosophical and reflective approach to this sad episode. I can only hope this does not silence him and other critics who courageously speak in defence of Malawi's hard-won democracy.
From my understanding of the matter at hand, it would appear the Inspector General is using students to act as informers on their lecturers and report any criticism of government made in the lecturer rooms. And judging by the fact that the IG had to travel all the well from Lilongwe to meet Blessings in Zomba suggests that the police hierarchy are taking these informants very seriously. Blessings' alleged 'crime' is to have given examples about the ongoing difficulties of lack of forex, fuel etc as examples of issues that can instigate the kind of demonstrations recently seen in Tunisia and Egypt.
In my view, the lecture room is the academic's sanctum - one needs to be free to speak and provide concrete, relevant and contemporary examples - preferably local ones - without the fear of being summoned bto appear before the Police. I have to say that inspite his ineptitude, the former President, Bakili Muluzi never resorted to such grotesque tactics to silence us. And we will not be silenced.

White Elephants: when World Inland ports are reduced to swimming pools

2011-02-02T17:26:00.012-05:00

On 23rd October 2010, Malawi’s wise and dynamic leader, Ngwazi # 2, Bingu wa Mutharika, opened the Nsanje World Inland Port in the presence of the Presidents of Zambia and Zimbabwe (bringing back memories of the potential revival of the old Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland?).

Even if the small and unresolved issue of a feasibility study had not been conducted, the all-knowing reincarnation of the Ngwazi commissioned the start of the construction of the port at a reported cost of K3.9 billion. Well, even the simple fact the Mozambican government – in whose territory most of this new 238km route to the Indian Ocean passes - had not granted their full authorization for the project, Mutharika went ahead and invited his federal colleagues to join him in launching the project on that sunny and hot October morning.

It is now almost four months since that colorful launch and no single ship, nay, boat/badge is yet to arrive at Nsanje port. And if the above picture of the port taken in January 2011 is to be believed, no badges will be docking at Nsanje port in the near future.

At least the people of Nsanje have found other uses for the port.

No More Chiefs in Malawi - with Guest Author, Blessings Chinsinga

2010-09-21T10:35:00.002-04:00

It is time to abolish the institution of chieftaincy for it has clearly outlived its usefulness. This sounds quite a harsh prognosis but it is surely a necessary evil if we are to turn the corner in our quest for a genuine democratic polity. The institution of chieftaincy is increasingly becoming more of a liability than an asset as a dominant mode for our socio-political organization in both rural and urban areas.

This would be a great shock to most of my colleagues. They would find it extremely difficult to come to terms with my rather abrupt change of heart about chiefs. Not long ago, I published an article in one of the international journals, inspired by my doctoral research, in which I romanticized chiefs a potential anchor of the nascent democratization project.

As embodiments of tradition, my argument was that chiefs were better positioned to enable us incorporate new ideals into our body politic without losing the essential elements of our tradition which would make new concepts about democracy easily understandable.

The alternative school of thought brands chiefs as the single most important obstacle to democratization. It has completely no mercy for chiefs. They are condemned as devoid of progress especially in such areas as political organization, women’s rights, social mobility and economic rights.

However, my article gave chiefs the benefit of doubt as potential positive forces in our quest to domesticate democracy the Malawian way. The gist of my argument was that as a western concept, democracy should be anchored by institutional frameworks rooted in African imageries. This would, in turn, provide the basis for discriminating between change as progress and change for the sake of change.

I was entirely wrong and perhaps too much of an optimist. Day after day the institution of chieftaincy is becoming indefensible. The virtues of chieftaincy that I reified in my article as potential building blocks for an indigenous but robust version of democracy are simply unattainable in view of the conduct of chiefs in recent years. It is difficult to see how chiefs can be held as harbingers of progress when they are prepared to mortgage the future of future generations all for short term selfish interests.

Chiefs have distinguished themselves as the most amazing group of people. They almost always share the opinion on whatever issue comes up. This is quite strange. Isn’t it? From Chitipa to Nsanje, chiefs will have the same views on an issue. Dissent voices of chiefs, if any, are heavily censured or denied a platform altogether. Such chiefs are often threatened with dethronement since the Chiefs Act empowers the Chief Political Officer to expel incumbents if deemed necessary in the national interest.

There is, nevertheless, one single important paradox about chiefs. There is a love-hate relationship between chiefs and their subjects. Survey after survey chiefs are amongst the top most corrupt institutions while at the same time they are considered as the most trustworthy among alternative leadership institutions especially at the grassroots.

The main drawback for chiefs is that they have abused the trust that their subjects bestow upon them in search for short-term self-aggrandizement. It is no longer the question of the greater common good but rather the sheer quest for immediate gratification even at the expense of mortgaging the future of generations yet to come.

Chiefs shamelessly took turns on the public broadcasters in support for the third term. This was incomplete disregard of the popular embodied in the 1994 Republican constitution. Presidential term limit was conceived as a means of preventing the abuse of power by incumbents, a common feature when the presidency becomes like an iron bowl of rice.

This is not all. Chiefs have continued to function as handmaidens for promoting the selfish interests of the political elite. They played a major in advocating for the change of the national flag claiming to speak on behalf of their subjects. These claims may actually be valid but it is just surprising that all chiefs could speak with the same mind on the issue. Chiefs have intervened en masse in the current succession crisis in DPP. They have probably less surprisingly overwhelmingly endorsed a single candidate since their minds tend to work exactly in the same way.

Chiefs hide under the cloak of serving the government of the day. This is sheer abuse of the concept of serving the government of the day. Any citizen, regardless of their political inclination, has an obligation to serve the government of the day as long as it is legitimately elected through a free and fair electoral process.

This does not, however, mean citizens including chiefs forfeit their right to constructively engage with a duly elected government. In short, serving the government of the day does not necessarily mean giving it a blank cheque to do as it pleases. Unfortunately, this is the interpretation that our chiefs have chosen to embrace at the expense of the greater common good.

Some chiefs have been reprimanded by their superiors for being excessively partisan in discharging their jobs. However, these chiefs are defiant with a clear sense of impunity. They argue that they will continue to discharge their duties in a one sided political mode on the pretext of serving the government of the day. This is the display of a false sense of consciousness at its best.

This article appeared in the Sunday Times of September 19th, 2010 under the column, "Talking Political Economy"

The two faces of Bingu?

2010-09-03T16:20:00.003-04:00

In my recent discussions about Malawi politics with friends and colleagues, a recurring theme has been whether we are now seeing a different Bingu wa Mutharika from the Bingu of 2004-2009. My take is that Bingu has not changed: what have changed are the circumstances of Malawi politics, enabling Bingu to show his true colors more.

Mutharika's first term as Malawi president (2004-2009) has garnered him several accolades. He is is credited for spearheading the fertilizer subsidy, reviving infrastructure construction, getting Malawi's foreign debts wiped off after reaching the completion point of the highly indebted poor country (HIPC) initiative in 2006; promoting new investments, notably in the mining sector, among several initiatives.

In his first term, Bingu had to cobble together a disparate coalition of mostly opportunistic defectors from the opposition ranks. Yet, even with this, he did not have complete control of the political agenda, as the combined opposition had a majority share of the Parliamentary seats.

To counter the opposition's influence, Mutharika was compelled to appeal to the public as his primary option for political survival. This resulted in a number of populist projects such as the fertilizer subsidy (which, admittedly, was forced on him by the opposition in 2005). One could also argue that the ambitious (but now since stalled) infrastructure construction boom during Mutharika's first term, were an example of the president's populism. Certainly, in most cases, we saw symbolic, yet popular 'Ground breaking ceremonies' for road projects that are yet to start. These and other similarly populist policies propelled Mutharika and his DPP to victory in the 2009 elections.

Not only did Mutharika personally secure the highest proportion of the presidential vote by a candidate in Malawi's last four elections (see this link for a summary of the 2009 general election results), but his party, the Democratic Progressive Party (which, it must be said, has recently demonstrated to be neither democratic nor progressive, but that is a story for another day), won a significant share of the parliamentary seats. The hitherto powerful opposition parties, meanwhile, have been reduced to role players in and outside the National Assembly.

However, recent developments - which include sidelining the vice president; bulldozing the name of the president's brother, Peter Mutharika, to succeed Bingu in 2014; increasingly dictatorial and threatening language by the president; a rubber-stamp Parliament that has oftentimes been bypassed by an overly-powerful Executive (as was the case in the purchase of the presidential jet); government machinations to undermine the weak opposition parties; irrational and frankly, stupendous policy decisions (read the quota system for university selection; flag change; relocation of the University of Science and Technology from Lilongwe to the President's farm at Ndata in Thyolo etc), have all conspired to not only poison the political environment, but have also eroded much of the public goodwill that Mutharika enjoyed in his first term.

So does all this mean Mutharika has changed? The signs and outcomes have certainly changed, but I do not think Bingu the man himself has. Instead, I am strongly of the view that what we are seeing is the true Mutharika. Because of the political climate in which he had to operate between 2004 and 2009, we could not have been able to see this true personality of Bingu, even if the signs were always there in the background. The threats against the opposition for example, were always there throughout his first term. The current ill-treatment of Vice President Joyce Banda, for example, is an almost mirror image of the treatment of Mutharika's first veep, Cassim Chilumpha, who was confined to Mudi House under house arrest for much of Mutharika's first term. The university academics, the media, business leaders, the clergy, among several groups, were all also attacked by Mutharika at one point or another during this period.

To cut a long story short, I believe Mutharika was forced by circumstances to show a different persona between 2004 and 2009. A good case in point, I believe is the recent flag change – listening to the president's comments on the reasoning behind the flag change, one gets the impression that he has always wanted to do this. However, given the precarious position he found himself in during his first term, he could not have succeeded in doing so until after 2009. Comparing the Bingu of today to the Bingu of 2004-2009, we can actually see that this is essentially the same man – a self centered individual who does not listen to advice; one who is keen to only have yes-men around him; an egocentric man who is intolerant of criticism. The main loser in the process is Malawi's democracy, which, as a close friend of mine said recently, is on life-support.

Let us revisit the issue of a maximum age limit for the President in Malawi

2010-08-09T21:42:00.012-04:00

Examining initially the gross changes which occur in the brain with ageing, it can be observed that the normal volume and weight of the adult brain begins to decrease from about 50 years of age. This is due to a reduction in the number of cells in a wide area of the brain: the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus, the substantia nigra, and the cerebellum....". - Martin Blanchard

Some years back, I presented a paper at the Constitutional Review Conference on the Presidency in Malawi (the paper can be accessed on this link). One of the topics I touched on in that presentation was whether Malawi should consider introducing a maximum age limit for the office of president. Although there were several issues that I touched on in my presentation, the topic of a maximum age limit elicited the most comments and discussion. I found it interesting that while many justified the retention of the minimum age limit of 35 on account that one's mental faculties are not fully developed before this age, the proposal for a maximum age limit was resoundingly shot down (although in a later anonymous survey of key political leaders, there was overwhelming support for the proposal).

Some groups of people were accused of plotting a coup against him, while yet others, including the presidents' own deputy at the time, were accused of planning to assassinate him . Civil society leaders, the media, the judiciary, his vice president, his predecessor as President were all accused of one thing or another and publicly chastised by the man. Those of us in academia were similarly dressed down, warned that we could be replaced on a count of three . And there were business leaders who were also hounded by the President for daring to go against his decrees (remember the issue of the tobacco prices and how some CEOs of tobacco companies were deported from the country on orders from the President?)

Come this second term, the man was given a commanding parliamentary majority and yet his eccentric behaviour seems here to stay. Perhaps we should have seen the warning signs earlier when he embraced the establishment of the Mulhako wa Alhomwe to champion the course of his Lhomwe ethnic group instead of becoming a champion of the all-inclusive ethnicity of 'Malawi'.
A few months back he not only ordered the re-introduction of the quota system for university selection, but he went out in public to lambast critics of the new policy which he justified by claiming that it is a way to neutralize what he alleges were the advantages that people from the region of Malawi were getting through some corner of the Chancellor College campus!
In recent times, he has spearheaded the change of the national flag under the false illusion that Malawi has transited from the dawn of development to a full blown developed nation deserving of a full sun (although the white star on the 'new' flag looks like the moon than sun!) Those of us who have been critical of the flag change have meanwhile been ridiculed as drunkards (talk of irony!).

The President is also not content with silencing critics and trumping on the already weak opposition. Instead, he has gone further to embarrass its leadership by ordering a significant reduction in the salary of the Leader of Opposition. A week later, he decides to bring his wife into cabinet - which presumably means she gets all the perks of a full cabinet minister (read that as a Mercedes Benz and a 4 x 4 vehicle, a plush office and salary to boot). Well, perhaps the savings made from reducing the salary of the leader of opposition can be used to pay for part of the salary of the new Minister of Safe motherhood!
In between, he has also tried to incite mob action by not only calling for the deportation of the couple whose dog bit the family's long-serving guard, but he has also tried to frame the matter within the context of race (never mind that dogs are almost colour blind!). Malawi's traditional donors too have borne the blunt of the President's hallucinations. Oh, and by the way, his current deputy - handpicked by none other than the president himself - seems to be falling out of favour (and her predecessor too suffered a similar fate)
Given that there is now no opposition to worry about, why does our President continue to see ghosts where there are none? Why can't a man in his final term of office not seek to build a legacy of a unifier instead of the increasingly divisive character he has become?
As we all get older, sadly, we begin to lose our mental capacities. This is a fact of science. It is perhaps high time we considered bringing back the maximum age limit. But then, as someone once said, every mad man thinks that everyone else is mad. It is perhaps my own madness that makes me think that our country's politics is being led by mad people.

Development ? What Development? An ode to the real Malawi flag

2010-07-12T16:46:00.007-04:00

Sometimes we Malawians behave as if we do not know what else is happening outside our borders.
The country builds a simple parliament building (with loan funds), a short dual carriage way, a hotel (where the majority of our 13 million people will never sleep in). Throw in a couple of promises of a 'dream' waterway to the Indian Ocean- we all scramble to give titles to the man in State House- who is already handsomely paid to do his job!

I have not traveled much in the world, so I cannot claim that we all the least developed country in the world. But this much I know - I have been to South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Senegal on this beautiful continent of ours- and I can say that while poverty does exist in all those countries, my beloved Malawi is behind all of them in terms of visible infrastructural development.
A single hotel, a new parliament building, a few dual carriage way roads here, a uranium mine there and a few patched up roads scattered around don't mean we have all of a sudden overcome all our myriad development challenges, let alone the grinding poverty.
Which is why I am, if you can excuse my French, pissed off that the Malawi government has bulldozed this flag change on the pretext that the country has made significant developmental achievements especially under the term of the current occupant in State House.
My patriotism always longs for a better Malawi. Whatever little achievements we have made, they are just a step towards a far much better Malawi. Which is why this blog will always fly the true flag of Malawi, with its rising sun as a beckon of a new and better day.

The sports fan side of me

2010-06-22T00:58:00.007-04:00

Ok, here are a couple of pictures from my attendance at sports events this last year. Enjoy
First, Football (the US version!)

1. MSU v Montana State September 2009. The two teams take to the field (victory for MSU)
2. Half Time of MSU V Montana State

3. Basketball: MSU v IPFW, December 20094. Basketball: MSU V Northwestern (Jan 2010) another win!5. Basketball Whiteout: MSU v Purdue (Feb. 2010 - sadly, a loss for MSU)

The Madness of Malawi politics and my political disillusionement...

2010-06-22T00:16:00.004-04:00

In recent weeks, I have had to explain to a couple of friends why this blog is not being regularly updated. Many reasons really...
The pressure of academic work: As my studies at Michigan State draw to a close, I find myself focusing more on my research work on Personal Rule and Presidential Term Limits in Africa. Besides taking a big chunk of my time, the study is focused on all of Africa. Given the Malawi-centric nature of this blog, it is really difficult to bring in material from my research onto this forum...at the moment at least.
.....and then there is the issue of my spending inordinate amounts of time on sports - College Basketball, American Football (yes, even that!), the NBA, the English Premiership, and now, the World Cup (Actually, I will be posting a few pictures on the sight from some of the sports games attended this last year)
Other than work, I must say I have recently become more and more disillusioned about Malawi politics: a rubber stamp Parliament that has been reduced to leadership-glorification chamber; blatant disregard of court decisions by government; an inept opposition that is completely lost when one is needed most; a crack down on rights (minority rights as well as freedoms of expression and speech, children rights etc); stupid decisions such as the plans to change the national flag; overzealous government zealots who know not the bounds of their authority; the quota system....the list goes on.
I am even more depressed to see the limited critique of government, from civil society activists, fellow academics to the common people. It is as if we are all in a trance. Excuse me for my inability to speak out for there is simply too much to speak out on and very little time and space to do so.
But then the patriot in me feels I have to speak my mind and I will. Meanwhile, let me salute the few but brave sons and daughters of Malawi who still speak and write about the political challenges we are encountering. You will be heard.

One year on- thinking aloud on the first anniversary of Mutharika’s second term

2010-05-28T11:19:00.003-04:00

How time flies. It is already more than a year since Bingu wa Mutharika stood at the Kamuzu Stadium podium, Bible in hand and took the oath of the President of the Malawi Republic for a second time. With the passage of one year, Mutharika has already spent 20 percent of his second term, leaving only four more years before he can pass on the presidential torch to a new leadership.

Speaking to the multitudes of Malawians gathered at the Kamuzu stadium on May 22, 2009, it was clear that President Mutharika saw his and the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) victory in the 2009 general elections as a reward for the achievements he had attained in the preceding five years. And in true adherence to the old Chewa proverb that claims "fumbi ndiwe mwini", Mutharika highlighted in his inaugural speech what he claimed were the achievements of his first administration from 2004 to 2009.

The public applauded, sang, drank, danced and went home, jubilant that not only had Mutharika been given a fresh five-year mandate, but also that his DPP had emerged with a huge parliamentary majority that would, on paper at least, enable Mutharika to purse his developmental agenda without the kind of shackles that had been a characteristic of the opposition-dominated Parliament between 2004 and 2009.

One year on though, the excitement has began dissipating. The optimism of May 2009 is gradually being replaced by a sense of a President who is increasingly out of touch with the people he is supposed to represent. In the last year, the most notable of the president's handwork has been the purchase of the presidential jet as well as the recent multi-million Kwacha wedding whose total cost, as well as who paid for it, still remain unclear to date.

Meanwhile in the National Assembly, there is a sense that despite the huge DPP majority, the Parliament has not lived up to expectation. In the absence of a strong and robust opposition, laws are being passed without adequate scrutiny. Meanwhile, there is a fear that the ruling party's huge parliamentary majority is being used to advance the interests of the DPP at the expense of democratic values and the interests of the country.

While the political game plays out, the ordinary people of Malawi, those individuals that were courted by the political elites to sacrifice their time and resources to stand on long queues and expose themselves to the elements in order to cast their votes in the May 19^th elections, have become rank-outsiders, forgotten and discarded until such a time when politicians will again want their votes as the 2014 elections loom closer.

This scenario often leads to regular discussions on the value of the vote. In buses, markets, churches, stores, football stadiums, drinking joints and other similar places, one hears a common question: why vote, especially considering that very little returns accrue to the voting public.

Indeed, within political science, the question on why individuals bother to take time off from what would otherwise be more self-benefitting activities in order to cast their votes, has led many researchers on electoral behavior to conclude that voting is an irrational activity. Put differently, rational individuals should abstain from voting, especially since besides the economic costs, there is an extremely little likelihood that the vote of a single individual can influence the electoral outcome.

Yet, democracy rests on the foundations of people's vote, even if theory tells us doing so is irrational. And thankfully, most of us continue to exercise our right to vote, in part because we see voting first, as a civic duty, but also as an opportunity to influence government policy by choosing individuals and parties that we think are best placed to advance our personal interest to the extent that those are also the interests of the majority of our country-folk.

If voting is a civic duty, then, it follows that those elected into power have a responsibility to the voters to deliver on their promises. Elections, in other ways, entail a form of a contract, where voters put individuals into office and expect them to honour their campaign pledges. Meanwhile, the voters' role goes beyond simply voting to include a duty of holding those elected into various public offices to deliver on their promises. Without such scrutiny, politicians will promise anything, including the moon, even if they know they cannot deliver.

It is in in-line with the foregoing that it might be worth to remind ourselves at this point, the one-year anniversary of the DPP's and Mutharika's electoral victory in the 2009 elections, what the DPP government promised and to start the process of assessing where we currently stand.

In his 20-page inaugural speech on May 22, 2009, Mutharika identified eight themes from the DPP manifesto as priority areas in his second administration. These included agriculture and food security; integrated rural development; education, science and technology; youth development; transport infrastructure development; irrigation and water development; energy development; and fighting corruption.

The one priority area that has arguably received the greatest attention in the last one year has been agriculture, especially with regard to the continuation of the agricultural subsidy component which has been instrumental in ensuring food security in recent years.

However, while the president continues to bask in the popularity of the agricultural input subsidies, he needs to be reminded, as do all Malawians, that the 2009 DPP manifesto promised a more comprehensive agricultural programme that also included promises to introduce and promote modern agricultural tools and equipment as well as the development of an agricultural green belt. Suffice it to say that these promises have been honored more in rhetoric and less in actual deeds.

While it seems a great idea to promise so much during elections campaign, there is very little movement in actual delivery on many of the other eight priority areas. Most of the road construction has stalled, perhaps waiting for the next electoral campaign cycle; the energy sector continues to be beset by numerous challenges as demonstrated by the frequency of electricity blackouts and fuel shortages in the country. Meanwhile, the promises of dams as part of the irrigation and water development sub-theme have remained nothing more than glossy words printed in on expensive campaign manifesto paper read by only a few elites.

Admittedly, one year of five is too soon to make a final judgment on the overall government performance. The direction taken in the past one year, can, however, serve as a useful pointer on where we are headed in the remaining four years. The only way Malawi is going to progress is not through promises borne out of colourful dreams by politicians. Already, we have, as country, seen how some colourful dreams remain nothing more than mere dreams.

We Malawian voters need to do our part in the electoral contract – if politicians are to be judged by their performance, then we need to hold them to account on their promises and call them out when they fail to deliver. And when they do not deliver, we should boot them out and reject any other new promises because these are likely to be false too. The past, in this sense, should give us the basis to decide on the future. That future, meanwhile, can itself be shaped by today's voter vigilance.