Ministerial Appointments in Malawi and Citizen’s Right to Know

Cabinet reshuffle is always headline news. This is because cabinet is very important in the running of a country – cabinet initiates and implement state policies. This means that citizens must be concerned with calibre and character of ministers forming a cabinet because cabinet decisions affect everyone. This also means that public scrutiny of the ministers is inevitable, some would say a must; the cabinet ministers must be prepared for it.

Yet, the reaction of Malawians to sacking and appointments of cabinet has always baffled me. It appears to me that extreme majority of Malawians are contented with the country’s constitutional mishap which empowers the State President to appoint whoever he/ she pleases into the cabinet.

The irony is that even though Malawian public does not demand the citizens’ right to know the criteria used to appoint individuals into this important body – the cabinet, Malawians are always discussing and speculating on why they think someone has made into the cabinet and why others have not. This indicates citizens’ interest in knowing how people are hired into cabinet positions; similarly, is also indicates public interest to know the reasons when a cabinet minister is fired.

So why are we not demanding citizens’ right to know?

It is clear to see that those responsible for presidential communication are aware of the public interest in cabinet appointments and sackings. Presidential communication handlers are aware that the State President owes the public an explanation on decision that affects the running of the country. This is why announcement on public appointments are always accompanied by this pre-emptive disclaimer: “… using powers vested in him by the Constitution His Excellency the President (whoever happens to be at the time) has decided to relieve (you can add a name) of his/ her responsibilities as Minister of …”

The disclaimer is intended to address a specific issue, away from that of sacking, or appointment of a cabinet minister. The point of the disclaimer is to manage public expectations and demands. This Constitutional provision is unfortunate because it protects Presidents from transparency. Yet, the Constitution is there to serve Malawians, not protecting leaders from public scrutiny and accountability – as it were, Malawians can do with amended version of this provision to suit the democratic needs of the country.

Like all the local media on that day, The Daily Times of 7^th April 2017 reported on the sacking of Minister of Civic Education, Culture and Community Development, Patricia Kaliati. Reading the Times’ story it was clear that the newspaper was mostly interested in digging out why Kaliati had been fired – the same was the case with The Nation and Nyasa Times.

There was no scrutiny whatsoever as to how the President settled on Cecilia Chazama to replace Kaliati. Nothing wrong with pursuing this angle – media institutions have a right to determine what they find newsworthy and angles to pursue. Yet, this is typical of how Malawians approach this important matter. Malawians are more interested in why ministers are fired but not necessarily how they are hired. Yet, the latter is crucial. In fact it does not make any sense to know why a cabinet minister has been fired when in the first place you did not care to know how they were appointed.

In Malawi we have cultivated a culture in which we think it is procedural that the State President must appoint all his/ her close associates into top positions. The Nation only mention that Chazama is a Secretary General of the ruling party, DPP and that she’s an MP for Blantyre North East. This culture makes us blind to broader issues of governance and stops us from asking important questions on transparency, accountability, nepotism, cronyism etc. These issues negatively affect the running of government. I am aware that these things happen elsewhere yet this should not justify Malawi’s situation.

Why citizen’s right to know matters?

Freedom of information campaigner, Heather Brooke argues that bad governments rule by secrecy and the problem is that decisions made in secrecy by such governments do not lead to good value for money or good public services.

This is very true for Malawi. The status quo whereby the President can hire and fire just because the Republican Constitution allows them; and the citizens have no right to demand the reasons behind the decision should not have been allowed in the first place. Over the years Malawians have paid dearly for this constitutional loophole. It has allowed State Presidents to appoint individuals merely as a reward for one’s “royalty” to the President and in some cases for the President to gain political advantage – mostly securing necessary numbers to pass bills in parliament.

The status quo nature and sustains nepotism and cronyism in the country. It compromises quality and efficiency of public services delivery. It does not help that currently the citizenry, the civil society, including the media are only curious to know why someone has been fired from the cabinet so folks can gossip and speculate about personal relationship and intraparty politics. Malawians, we cannot allow ourselves to turn into a nation that is only interested in gossip while those we elect in office are running the country down. We must focus on the bigger picture.

Malawi’s plans for major electoral reform are way overdue

Malawi is set for a major overhaul of its winner-takes-all electoral system with far-reaching implications for the country, if ongoing efforts to reform the system bear fruit.

Any changes in the voting system will represent the biggest overhaul of the country’s electoral system since it became a multiparty state in the mid 1990s. This followed the end of one-party dictatorship under Kamuzu Banda, the country’s first post-colonial leader and “president for life”.

A special Malawi Law Commission was given the task of reforming the country’s electoral laws. Following a year of investigation, it recently held a two-day multi-stakeholder conference to discuss the planned reforms. Its main proposal is that the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system of electing the president should be abolished.

I believe that the proposed new system would help reduce the toxic politics of regionalism in Malawi. It would also enhance national stability, which is the bedrock of any successful nation. But it isn’t without challenges, and would need the serious allocation of state resources to bring it about.

Proposed changes

The proposed new system – absolute majority – to replace the FPTP will require the winning candidate for president to get at least 51+ percent threshold of the national vote.

Political scientist at Catholic University, Nandini Patel, a participant at the conference, has explained the proposal thus:

In a situation where no presidential candidate secures the threshold, the recommendation is that there should be a runoff or double ballot where the top two candidates contest in the second round and the one who secures more votes is declared winner.

On the face of it, the proposal is straightforward and makes logical sense. Yet, this is complex than it appears and if adopted it would revolutionise the way local politics is done.

The FPTP has been been in place since 1994, when Malawi embraced multiparty politics after doing away with Kamuzu Banda’s 30 years of dictatorship. Since then, a presidential candidate from a high-populated region is more or less assured of electoral victory because the FPTP system.

In the case of Malawi, the country’s Southern Region has always had a higher population than the Central and Northern administrative regions. Thus, all the country’s presidents since the dawn of democracy have come from that region; Bakili Muluzi (1994 – 2004), Bingu wa Mutharika (2004 – 2012), Joyce Banda (2012 – 2014) and the incumbent, Peter Mutharika, Bingu’s young brother, from 2014.

This may yet be a coincidence given that there is no study to back the hypothesis. But, the fact that the sitting President, Peter Mutharika, won the election with only 35% of the national threshold strengthens the hypothesis.

All things being equal, it should not matter where the state president comes from. Yet, as I have previously argued: the trend in Malawi is for the incumbent president to concentrate government development efforts in their own regions and districts of origins.

This makes those from other parts of the country feel aggrieved and short-changed. It’s for this reason that some members of the political elite in the country lodged serious calls for federal system of government, barely two months after Mutharika’s electoral victory in 2014.

Of course the late President, Bingu wa Mutharika initially came into office in 2004 with only 36% of the national threshold but managed to get a 63%of the national threshold in 2009 to win his second term.

He got votes in all regions other than only the Southern Region where he comes from.

The proposals to end the advantage the FPTP gives to candidates from highly populated districts are already facing resistance from some in the governing party. Heatherwick Ntaba, President Mutharika’s special advisor has argued ca the proposed new system of electing the president is “unrealistic and wasteful.”.

there is no way we can attain legitimacy of people are talking about. Let us talk about the costs. In reality we are already struggling to conduct by-elections [in areas where MPs and local government councillors have died].

Challenges

The proposed absolute majority system will certainly have its own problems. But, Ntaba’s fears are self-serving as the current system benefits his political party. Given the country’s regionalism voting pattern, the new 51+ winning threshold would require presidential candidates to reach out to regions beyond their own regions in order to win the presidency. No single region can produce enough votes for 51+ winning threshold.

Presidential candidates will thus be forced to consider forming alliances with candidates from other regions. This would have a good unintended consequence as politicians would be forced to extend government developmental programmes beyond their owns regions.

This would also introduce Malawi to the dynamics of alliance politics, with all its unpredictability and possible infighting within the governing alliance, given that it leaves a room for alliances of convenience, that are not necessarily in the interest of the country.

Yet, the bigger picture is that the new policy would reduce grievances and the feelings of unfairness. In the past, these fuelled calls for the country to adopt a federal system of government.

Fake News is about Journalism, Not Social Media

BBC recently had their Africa debate in Blantyre, Malawi. The debate was on whether “journalism in Africa is threatened by fake news”. The BBC said they had the debate in Malawi because Malawians are keen and royal listeners of BBC World Service. What came out clearly in the course of the debate was that Malawi was chosen because of events of September to October 2016 when Malawi social media was rife with rumours that the country’s President, Peter Mutharika had died in the USA where he was attending United Nations General Assembly.

The rumours of the president ill health and the supposed death, which was fuelled by lack of communication on whereabouts of the President weeks after the General assembly had finished, may have passed as news “news” on social media and some online “news” channels trying hard to be the first to break the news. Online it can be very difficult to distinguish genuine news sites from bogus ones.

When you consider the changing news environment and technologies that have enabled that change, you will appreciate that fake news is definitely a challenge, not just for media institutions trying to do honest job of gathering and reporting factual news and information but also for the public looking for credible information from journalistic institutions. This makes the debate on fake news timely and relevant.

Yet, like all cultural and communicative issues, it is important that the debate be define clearly: it is about the state of journalism. Social media may be part of the debate but fake news is about journalism, the profession, not social media – a platform. My worry is that most people are confusing social media. There are two related but critically different problems with this confusion.

In Africa, traditional media is a bigger problem than social media

Fake news is not new. Robert Darnton traces fake news – “dubious information”, as he calls it, to sixth Century AD. The difference today is that fake news has found new platform on social media where sharing of information is instant and has the magic of reaching across national boundaries. What is important is for news organisation to improve on fact-checking and educate people on how to identify false information.

Throughout human history people have hard to learn to separate facts from fiction. Situation may be different in the post-truth world where most people are guided by emotions, not facts – making fake news more appealing that factual reporting. Today folks would rather hear what they want to hear true or false, than face inconvenient objective information.

Yet, for most African countries, which the debate concentrated on, the main culprits when it comes to fake news are state controlled media. If not peddling outright lies in favour of those in power then it is the cardinal sin of omission. Theirs is not journalism that speaks truth to power, it is not journalism that is aimed at uncovering incompetence or corruption in the corridors of power. Omitting critical and factual information in journalism must be recognised as fake news.

Fake news on official news organisations such as state or public broadcasters is more harmful than social media, more especially in places like Africa where majority of people across the continent still rely on broadcasting for news – not social media. Moreover, this study shows that majority of citizens in the post-authoritarian African states trust more in government-owned media institutions than any others.

… don’t let governments in

As previously agued, oppressive governments across the continent that are uncomfortable that internet has provided an open forum for free expression would happily use the fake news argument to control social media. In 2016 there were 50 internet shutdowns across world, majority of these cases happened on African content.

To avoid this, fake news must be defined for what it is, not tying it to specific platforms. Increasingly, governments are developing the trend of calling anything they don’t like fake news. This is a dangerous trend that me must avoid at all cost.

The fears about fake news are real, we must find a way of preserving good ethical journalism that is a backbone of our society. Yet, we must avoid the lazy thinking of simply blaming social media, which could let in autocratic governments to control a tool that has provided so much free space for freedom expression and providing checks and balances to those in power.

Even With Access to Information, Malawi Needs Whistle-blowers

On 6^th August 2016 one of Malawi’s two dailies, The Nation newspaper reported that Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs had started an exercise that would result in all public servants taking oath of secrecy in all government Ministries, Departments and Agencies. The Justice Ministry did not speak to the media but the then Minister of Information and Civic Education, Patricia Kaliati confirmed of the development to the newspaper, telling the newspaper that Malawi government was trying to “bring about sanity and dignity to the civil service.”

It is not a public knowledge whether this has yet been effected but Kaliati then emphasised that this was a “normal” exercise, which indicates the eagerness of the government to see this being put into operation. Kaliati argued that this was a routine thing as “every officer when taking office takes an oath of secrecy.” Even ministers, added Kaliati, “also take the oath of service and allegiance and that is normal.”

The motive here is to criminalise whistle-blowing, while at the same time ensuring that spokespersons and public relations officers whose job is to airbrush and sanitise information is the first and last call for journalists, civil society organisations, academics and members of the public looking for government held information. Kaliati sought to defend this by questioning why would anyone want to get information from a driver or a Principal Secretary when the Information Minister is a government’s spokesperson.

Is Malawi really committed to providing access to information?

What Kaliati said seven months ago is more relevant today with the enactment of Access of Information (ATI) Bill into law. That ATI is now guaranteed is a big deal for Malawi. No doubt about it. And all the people and institutions that have doggedly fought for it over the years must be congratulated. But to understand what this actually means in practice it is important to look at it from historical perspective.

American dissident, the late Howard Zinn argued: “if you don’t know history it is as if you were born yesterday. And if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up.” As Malawians and those concerned are celebrating the enactment of ATI into law, Kaliati’s perspective makes you wonder: is the government really committed to provide access to information, or the enactment of ATI into low is a mere window dresser, just another piece of “good” public relations?

These are pertinent questions, especially given the fact that Kaliati emphasised that the oath of secrecy by public officials would remain intact even when the ATI bill became law – perhaps unconstitutional given that the republican constitution is the supreme law of the land but what Kaliati said shows the stance of the government insofar as government’s commitment to provide public’s access to information is concerned.

Kaliati said: “only responsible persons would have authority to release information to members of the public or media and not anybody else.” Of course there has to be a formal channel of accessing information and I know the ATI law provides for this but these “responsible persons” are surely not through government spokespersons and public relations officers.

What now?

Malawi journalism needs to adjust according to the changing times. The question of news sourcing is hardly discussed. Yet, it is crucial for journalism. Emily Bell, C.W. Anderson and Clay Sirky argued that journalism that really matters “exposes corruption, draws attention to injustice, hold politicians and business accountable for their promises and duties. It informs citizens and consumers, helps organise public opinion, explains complex issues and clarifies essential disagreements. Journalism plays an irreplaceable role in both democratic politics and market economics.”

For this to happen journalists have to go beyond the usual “he said, she said” reporting, which heavily relies on formal sources of information such as spokesperson and public relations officers. In Malawi journalists and public relations officers comfortably call each other as “colleagues”. Perhaps this is because the vast majority of spokespersons and public relations officers in Malawi started out in journalism before joining public relations where remuneration and conditions of service are considerably better.

Yet, journalists and public relations officers are not colleagues. The relationship between these is similar to that of a cat and mouse, whereby the job of the cat is keep the mouse out the house – the job of public relation officers and spokespersons is manage the kind of information that journalists can and cannot get from their institutions. Now that ATI is law, it should be easier for journalists to get information – bypassing gatekeepers. Yet this can only happen if journalists appreciate the cat and mouse relationship between them and public relations people.

We must appreciate that even with access to information granted, whistle-blowing remain very important for accountability and transparency. Journalists and those seeking public information still need whistle-blowers. You can only demand information if you know what is going on – you need tips from those with inside information. Whistle-blowers are paramount, good journalism thrive on this – not just access to information. This means that contrary to what Malawi government thinks, journalists must speak to drivers, Principal Secretaries and other civil servant – and whistle-blowing has to be encouraged and whistle-blowers legally protected if Malawi government is indeed committed to transparency and accountability.

African Leaders Could use ‘Fake News’ to Control Internet Access

Social media and technology companies have emerged as major culprit of the 2016 American elections for allowing publication and promotion of ‘fake news’. For sometime journalists and media researchers have warned and argued against the increasingly influential role that technology companies are playing in determining journalistic decision within the mainstream media.

Emily Bell, a journalist and journalism professor for digital journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism has warned that “Facebook has swallowed”, while Jemima Kiss, head of techno at the Guardian has called Facebook a “giant that might eat us”.

This time ‘fake news’ has grabbed the headlines because of the surprise victory of Donald J. Trump who beat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, against all the media projections and opinion polls. Post election period is always for postmortem – reflecting on national gains, loses and future prospects. Worries if not fears about ‘fake news’ its impact on issues of national concern are justified.

The good thing though is that the concern about ‘fake news’ does not underplay the importance of journalism in democracy, it only emphasizes the crucial role journalism play in promoting and safeguarding democratic values.

Barack Obama may be right to feel vindicated about this issue. Interacting with political reporters in March this year, the outgoing US president reminded reporters that the job of a political reporter is “more than just handing someone a microphone. Our democracy needs you more than ever … So I believe the electorate would be better served if your networks and your producers would give you the room to cover substance.”

Though Obama was not explicit about it, he was talking about Trump who was growing in popularity and influence among disfranchised, mostly white Americans. Yet, at the time many, including the media felt Trump would disappear as primaries take shape – believing in some kind of political ‘natural selection’ in which Trump never fitted.

They say when America sneezes the whole world catches the cold. The ‘fake news’ issue could play into the hands of unscrupulous African leaders refusing to be transparent and accountable to their people. As social media has become an essential tool for political engagement in many African countries, guarding against ‘fake news’ could become a convenient excuse for most African leaders to control social media.

Already internet shutdowns are taking a hold on the continent. Digital rights group, Access Now has in the last two years been recorded internet shutdowns in Africa and its records shows that Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo Brazzaville, DRC, Ethiopia, Niger, Togo, and Uganda have all switched off internet at one point or the other with intention of denying access to its citizens.

In Africa there is something called “benchmarking”, meaning that what happens in one African country is likely to happen in another country as well. As it is, the internet shutdown phenomenon is going into this direction. Just as it was the case with Africa’s post-colonial leaders who turned into dictators almost overnight. This was also the case with third termism; as the so-called third wave of African leaders refused to give up power after complete their time in office.

Ultimately, the issue of ‘fake news’ in Africa is likely to have a completely different outlook – a draconian one – that of limiting citizen’s access to the internet. After all, ‘Fake news’ has always been there in most African countries – only that it is peddled by state media, especially through broadcasting. The job of state media in most African countries is to promote the incumbency – insuring that they stay in power for all means.

As the discussion of ‘fake news’ goes on around the world, it is vitally important that Africans be steadfast guarding against their governments trying to use the ‘fake news’ argument to justify restriction on internet access. Any African government talking of ‘fake news’ online with the aim to control internet and social media access must first let go their control of state media, especially broadcasting, which only serves narrow interests of the privileged few and not serving wider interests of national importance. This is more malicious and it does much harm to African democracies than the internet.

Malawi Presidents and Press Rallies

Writing in 2000, Francis Nyamnjoh, professor of anthropology at University of Cape Town made the following observation on African media: “An examination of most legal frameworks in Africa, even after the liberalisation of media in the 1990s, reveals a craving to control that leaves little doubt of lawmakers perceiving journalists as potential troublemakers who must be policed.”

He added:

“The tendency is for new laws [in Africa] to grant freedom in principle while providing, often by administrative nexus, the curtailment of press freedom in practice. Although strongest in Francophone Africa, this use of derogable and claw back measures by the state to limit the right of the expression and press freedom is common through out the continent.”

I reflected on this following the recent fallout between media institutions in Malawi and Malawi government, led by the country’s two paramount media bodies, NAMISA and Media Council of Malawi. The media, mostly private owned are against the presence of political party officials and supporters, often in large numbers, at presidential press conferences. The role of these party members at presidential press conferences is not officially defined but these party members jeer and intimidate journalists who supposedly ask difficult, embarrassing or awkward questions. In essence, jeering journalists for doing their job.

The latest of such case was President Peter Mutharika’s press conference held at State House in Lilongwe to brief the country on his official trip to United Nations General Assembly.

The press conference was full of tension due to the President’s unexplained prolonged stay in America, a development that triggered rumors and speculation about his health. Yet, it is important to recall that such press conferences, or “press rallies” as others have called them are not peculiar to Mutharika government. Former president Joyce Banda held a similar “press rally” on her return from abroad when she anticipated tough questions from the media on what was then news revelations on cashgate in 2013. Before Mrs Banda the late president, Bingu wa Mutharika, held his own “press rally” as he returned from holiday in Hong-Kong in 2011.

So the trend is that these “press rallies” take place when state presidents are trying to avoid unwelcome questions – avoiding accountability. When faced with such a situation the tendency has, unfortunately, been to shift blame and portray journalists as troublemakers, as Nyamnjoh has observed. Meanwhile, these “press rallies” are not just aimed at intimidating and bullying the media into submission; it is also way of limiting freedom of expression while national legal frameworks permits it.

Noam Chomsky made a key observation on these tactics, arguing: “the smartest way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” The government strategy is to allow journalists to come to the press conference in the spirit of freedoms of press and expression yet limiting them on what they can ask and say.

Unfortunately, the state machinery has completely misread the script. The once submissive local media that for 30 years of Kamuzu Banda’s dictatorship could only report what the governing authorities wanted has overcame the post-Kamuzu hangover. They now realise that they owe their allegiance to the nation, not the state and so demanding accountability and transparency is their key duty.

As it is, the onus is on the government to also realise that bullying tactics of the old will no-longer hold sway. Coercion is always futile in open societies where ideas work – this is why the government needs good public relations people in place. It should be clear for those who care to see that the genesis of the current standoff between the government and private media institutions as poor communication on the part of the government.

It is painfully clear that the Malawi government is oblivious to changes in communication systems and hence cannot adapt accordingly. Live broadcasting, especially television has been a game changer in political communication for some time now. The state machinery may not be aware of this, but live broadcasting is one of the key factors why from Bingu wa Mutharika, Joyce Banda to Peter Mutharika, presidential communication team always get agitated about press conferences.

A live press conference means that the public make up their own minds as the president respond to questions. The public does not have to wait for media institutions to repackage the information for them. In this case both the media and, crucially, the state lose control over information. This is difficult even for a heavily partisan state controlled institutions like Malawi Broadcasting Corporation to change people’s perceptions.

The odds here are against the state if intimidation is the way they want to go, as it seems the case at the moment. Instead of intimidating journalists and cursing freedom of the press and expression, the government could do well to have people in place who understand the increasingly changing communication environment. Being in control of communication no longer means having a spokesperson that can speak the loudest, it means understanding increasingly complex communication systems. Most importantly the government can just be honest, open and transparent – this way it doesn’t have to worry about media. As they say, it is better to light a lamp than to curse the dark.

It’s not just Mutharika, it’s the system as well

Five days after Peter Mutharika’s return from his prolonged stay in the United States of America where he attended United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Malawi President, held a much anticipated press conference to brief Malawians on duties he carried out during his time in the USA. At least this was the official agenda of the press briefing, which was earmarked for 90 minutes but lasted for about 2hrs.

Malawians expected much more information from the press conference than a mere briefing on the Assembly, which would not have interested most Malawians anyway. President Mutharika stayed on in America way after the Assembly, and for a good part of this period the President was unaccounted for. Malawians did not know exactly where their president was, let alone what he was doing. There was no updates on Malawi state broadcaster, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, which covers every little trivia of Malawi presidents. There was no word from the government communications team as well.

Only after Malawians started questioning the whereabouts of their president on social media, mostly Twitter and Facebook did one of the President’s press officers responded to say the president was working via Skype. The response was patronising enough but it became silly that the press officer failed to provide evidence that the president has any official Skype account – let alone Malawi Government, which he would have been corresponding with.

The lack of any meaningful information from the government on the president’s whereabouts resulted into rumour and speculations. This is understandable given the terrible history of African presidents hiding illness and dying abroad.

On his return, after a month in America, Mutharika was seen using only his left hand to greet his political party members, government officials and other delegates gathered at the airport to welcome him. Yet, the president is known to be right-handed. For those who believed the president had been ill this justified their suspicions. Even worse, there was no customary press conference that Malawi presidents give on their return from official duties outside the country.

The president appeared flamboyantly to meet the press, obviously to prove he was “enjoying robust health”, as his Minister of Information had said. Among many things that the president said was an admission that he had indeed been ill. Suffering from rheumatism, a condition he said he has always had, and assured Malawians that he was recovering well and that he was about “80 %” fit. He promised to be 100% alright in couple of weeks. Subsequently, it was the rheumatism that prevented him from using his right hand on the arrival. His right shoulder was stiff because it had been injected .

Mutharika went on to say that there was no way he would have returned to Malawi leaving good medical care in the USA if he was still ill. He bragged about doctors and medical scheme he has in America.

For Mutharika, having medical scheme in America is not entirely surprising, given that the president lived in America for over 40 years, teaching law in various universities. His children are still residents in America. What Malawians are not happy with however is the manner in which he boasted about his medical cover abroad while majority of Malawi hospital lack basic medicines such as Aspirin and Panado.

The criticism is justified, I was equally irritated by the remarks as I watched the press conference. Yet, the fact that the president could be so insensitive on this serious issue is an indictment, not just on the president, but also on Malawi as a country. In Malawi, it is acceptable to use taxpayers money, a majority of whom cannot afford basic antibiotics, to fly out senior public and government officials for medical attention abroad. In Malawi, it is acceptable that people who are entrusted with running public hospitals together with their families go to private clinics while services in public hospital are getting worse by day.

It is acceptable in Malawi that government officials entrusted with running and overseeing education system send their children, relatives etc. to expensive schools outside Malawi, while the education system in Malawi is falling apart. The statement that president Mutharika made is despicable and those condemning the president for this are of course morally and ethically right. Yet, this will not achieve the desired end because the issue is not and should not be about Mutharika. It is about the system. That is why the President naively felt it was ok to boast about his medical cover in America.

Malawi is a very reactionary country. The consequences of which is that Mutharika will take criticism and battering but nothing will change for the better because the reaction is directed at a wrong entity. In typical Malawi fashion, Mutharika and his handlers will blame this on the jealousy of his political foes, turning the whole issue into a political farce, not a serious matter of governance and accountability. Mutharika is only a symptom of a larger problems.

Power battles keep Malawians guessing why their president disappeared

The President of Malawi, Peter Mutharika, finally returned home after a month-long absence. His still unexplained absence led to speculation that he had either gone awol or was hiding debilitating illness. The failure by his government to explain his whereabouts only served to fuel the speculation.

Mutharika landed in New York on September 16 for the UN general assembly, which ended on September 26. As it is always the case in Malawi, the reports about his trip were dominated by issues about the size of his entourage. Malawi’s presidents always travel with a team of cronies and hangers-on at the expense of the Malawi taxpayers.

When Mutharika finally returned on 16 October, he only used his left hand to wave at and greet people who welcomed him at the airport. Given that he is right-handed, the use of his left hand and the seemingly inflexible right hand gave credence to the rumours that he had been receiving medical treatment in America.

He didn’t hold the customary press conference for Malawi presidents returning from official duties. Instead, the president held a press briefing five days later. He told the nation that he was in good health and that he only used his left hand because he was diagnosed with rheumatism on his right. He was not moving it, he explained, because he had received an injection on his way back home.

One needs to understand Malawian politics in order to appreciate this bizarre episode in which a state president can be unaccounted for.

That Malawi’s vice president, Saulos Chilima, was not mentioned at all during this episode is revealing. After considerable social media pressure, Mutharika’s communication team was eventually forced to respond about their president’s whereabouts.

But the team’s response to what were serious questions on a matter of public interest question bordered on contempt. Mutharika’s spokesperson retorted that the president was running the country via Skype. Yet the vice president is supposed to assume full presidential duties in the absence of the president.

There is a dynamic behind the spokesperson’s emphasis on Mutharika working remotely. Saying this meant the vice president was not the one in control as that might have serious political implications within the ruling party. The message was that the vice president, a party outsider, did not make decisions on behalf of the president and by extension the ruling party.

Absence continues to feed speculation

Whatever the state of the president’s health, it is clear that the government has lost control over public opinion and has a huge task to regain public trust. To paraphrase James Freeman Clarke, the difference between a politician and a good leader is that a politician thinks about the next election while the good leader thinks about their country. Mutharika may yet be controlled by those who benefit from his presidency but it is his legacy that is at stake.

What was more peculiar was the fact that even the state media, which follows the president everywhere and publishes all the trivia about him, was silent this time. Speculation abounded about what was happening.

Malawians took to social media – mostly twitter and Facebook – demanding to know the whereabouts of their president, using the hashtag #BringBackMutharika.

The silence about the president’s absence continues to feed speculation, including that he is seriously ill. Pictures of him on his return appear to support this, even though he looked much healthier and energetic giving a press briefing five days after his arrival. But then people are justified in their suspicions given a history of African leaders hiding illness.

The ruling party outsider

In the case of Mutharika, the main fear is that his absence will result in his vice president, who is an outsider to the party, ascend to power. This is similar to the way that then out of favour vice president Joyce Banda, succeeded the late Bingu wa Mutharika following his death in 2012.

Admitting to ill health would mean that the vice president would have to take over presidential duties until Mutharika is in a position to return to the office. As it is at the moment, this is the most plausible explanation for the information blackout.

Another reason proffered for his absence is that he was on vacation. After all, the president lived and taught law in American universities for over 40 years and his children are residents there.

The claim that he was working remotely remains doubtful given the lack of coverage of this by the state media and absence of any evidence.

The silence over his whereabouts has everything to do with internal ruling party politics. The vice president is an outsider within the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. He was picked from the corporate world to run as Mutharika’s running mate on the eve of May 2014 elections. Chilima was chosen for his youthfulness and achievements at Airtel (Malawi) where he rose through the ranks to become the company’s chief executive officer.

For the ruling party, the problem with Chilima is that no one can stop him assuming full presidential powers in absence of Mutharika, as this is constitutional. Therefore it is crucial for those wishing Chilima out to insist that Mutharika is in charge even when this may not be the case.

Ultimately, Malawi is bound to pay for such politics as it has the capacity to leave a power vacuum. At the moment Malawians are enduring daily power cuts, eight hours on average. Residents of Lilongwe, the capital city and its main commercial city Blantyre, are going days, sometimes weeks without running water.

Polytechnic, a constituent college of University of Malawi has failed to open due to fees increase stand-off between students union and the university council. Yet, petty politics has taken precedent.

Grace Chiumia is a Victim of Malawi’s Defective Political System

Fredric Jameson, a contemporary American Marxist and literary critic opened his influence work on The Political Unconscious (1981) with that slogan: “always historicise.” Jameson’s view is that all works of literature are received by the reader with already read status – even new text, he argues, is read with a hangover of unconscious prejudice and interpreted under the influence of opinions of the time.

Jameson says instead, a metacommentary is always necessary if we are to uncover a true meaning of any text. Any given phenomenon, he says, must be analysed from three perspectives in order to get a full meaning of the situation. First is political history. Second is context of the social period in which the phenomenon occurred and finally the entire period of the mode of production – here the mode of production meaning everything that goes into the production of the necessities of one’s life.

The importance of metacommentary is that it leads us to a full understanding of our social, political and economic transitions. It points to the fact that ideas do not suddenly appear and disappear – nothing takes place in isolation from the existing political context.

This is the point often missed by most social commentators and analysts, more so in Malawi. The current case being that of Malawi’s Minister of Sports and Culture, Grace Chiumia’s calling President Peter Mutharika a “life president”. Chiumia has since apologised to Malawians and the president for calling him “life president.” Chiumia should have known better how politically incorrect this is, especially for a country that has endured authoritarian leadership of a “life president” – Kamuzu Banda.

Malawians are understandably angry and rightfully cynical about the statement – was Chiumia perhaps testing waters? Maybe intentions are there to make Mutharika a “life president?” I personally doubt this. Instead, from Jameson’s perspective, I believe Chiumia is herself a victim of the country’s political system – a system that forces those occupying appointed public positions like hers to use every window of opportunity to show their supposedly unquestionable loyalty to the president – the appointing authority.

From Kamuzu Banda, Malawi’s founding president, to the incumbent, Peter Mutharika – the country’s fifth president, the thinking is that simply calling the State President – what he/ she is; a State President is not enough. One must use as much adjectives as their vocabulary can provide. It is very easy to talk nonsense and make mistakes when you are in this situation. It is not an enviable position at all.

Above everything else, Chiumia’s case is a reminder of the rotten political system that Malawi has. Ultimately, attacking Chiumia is missing the point if not an opportunity to critique a system that puts political patronage personal interests above national interests. You would not have these cases where there is no cronyism and political patronage – these begets bootlicking, which is what Chiumia was doing.

In Jameson’s perspective, you cannot scrutinise an individual – Chiumia in this case, separately from the system that produces and reproduce her ways of thinking. She has perhaps noticed her “mistake”, hence the apology, after the public criticism. It is important to analyse these issues from the full perspective of the system that produces it. A mango tree will not give you apples because it produces mangos.

How Malawi’s Leaders Keep Choosing Optics Over Justice

Malawi’s leaders have perfected the politics of evasion. Faced with complex national problems, they reach for quick fixes that seem decisive but solve nothing, much like bandaging a boil instead of treating the underlying infection. Problems are not confronted; they are wished away. Crisis after crisis, Malawi survives not through resolution but through delay. The result is a country permanently suspended between emergency and exhaustion, always living to fight another day.

Recent events expose this failure with brutal clarity. First came the barbaric killings of people with albinism for their body parts. Then, in the middle of a collapsing economy, the University of Malawi Council announced a steep hike in tuition fees. Predictably, students protested across the university’s four colleges. Predictably, the state responded with force, clashes with police, destruction of property at Chancellor College, and the closure of the campus.

These are very different crises. But the political response to both reveals the same governing instinct: suppress the symptoms, manage the outrage, and move on.

Punishment Without Justice

Public debate on the killings of people with albinism has been reduced to one loud demand: harsher punishment. Calls for the death penalty have dominated social media, rallies, and parliamentary corridors. A ruling party MP, Boni Kalindo, even organised a “naked” protest to pressure Parliament into legislating capital punishment. Parliament responded by amending the Penal Code to impose life imprisonment.

This approach may satisfy public anger, but it is intellectually lazy and politically dishonest. These killings are not acts of madness; they are acts of commerce. People with albinism are murdered because their body parts are believed to have market value in ritual practices. Where there is demand, supply will follow. No sentence, death, or life will stop a trade driven by belief, money, and desperation.

Yet the state refuses to ask the most dangerous question of all: who is buying these body parts? When someone is arrested with bones, the public debates whether the sentence is long enough, not whether the crime was committed, who profits from it, or why these networks remain intact. Anger replaces investigation. Vengeance replaces strategy.

If Malawi were serious about protecting people with albinism, it would focus less on symbolic punishment and more on dismantling the demand side of the trade, through intelligence-led policing, regional investigations, and confronting the political and economic interests that keep these networks alive. But that kind of work is slow, difficult, and politically unrewarding. So it is avoided.

Education as a Privilege, Not a Right

The same cowardice defines the university fees crisis. The standoff between students and the University Council is not fundamentally about MK400,000 versus MK100,000. It is about whether higher education in Malawi is a public good or a private privilege.

Even at lower fees, thousands of students would still be locked out of university because their families are poor. Malawi’s leaders, many of whom benefited from heavily subsidised public education, now preside over a system that quietly excludes the very people it claims to uplift.

This is not a new problem. For years, the media has reported rising dropout rates due to unaffordable fees. Instead of structural reform, the state has offered theatrical interventions: ordering students back to campus, promising temporary funding, and issuing statements. The boil was covered. The infection spread.

Today, the crisis has returned in a new form, more explosive and more violent.

A Crisis of Leadership, Not Events

What links the killings of people with albinism and the university fees standoff is not a coincidence; it is a governance failure. Malawi is ruled by leaders who fear long-term solutions because they do not fit into election cycles. They prefer gestures over justice, punishment over prevention, force over dialogue.

Activism must reject this politics of distraction. Malawi does not lack laws; it lacks courage. It does not lack faith; it lacks accountability. Until the country demands leadership that confronts root causes rather than manages outrage, crises will continue to multiply, and the most vulnerable will continue to pay the price.

Bandaging boils may stop the bleeding for a moment. But untreated infections eventually kill.