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by
Steven Nhlane, 05 March 2005
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16:32:19
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Shame Gwanda, shame
3/03/05—Republican Party President Gwanda Chakuamba seems to me to be the most unstable politician in the country. His style and approach to politics is the antithesis of the Malawi Congress Party president John Tembo’s. If we may ask: has his style of and approach to politics served him and the country well? If the answer is yes, then we have no moral high ground to criticise him. If it is no, then that is the reason we must read on.
After all, politics has been defined as a game of possibilities, and as the ability to make friends with the right people and dispense with enemies when they become liabilities; and good politicians are those who manage change well.
Like all veteran political heavyweights, Gwanda traces his political career to the earlier days of the MCP, the party he served for well over two decades until he was arrested and imprisoned in 1979. He was released at the dawn of multiparty democracy in 1992 after spending just about 12 of the 22-year jail term meted out on him.
After his release, he briefly joined one of the two big pressure groups then, the UDF—the other one was Aford—before he defected to the same party that had kept him in the cooler for 12 years.
The initial payment for Gwanda for rejoining the MCP was leading a three-member triumvirate that was appointed to run the country after the former President Hastings Kamuzu Banda was taken ill. The other members were Tembo and Robson Watayachanga Chirwa.
On a long term basis, Gwanda could also not resist the niceties that were dangled in front of his nose, namely to become the Ngwazi’s deputy in government had the referendum ended in favour of the status quo.
After MCP—which was fighting for the retention of a single party government—failed in the referendum, Gwanda went on to become the Ngwazi’s runningmate in the 1994 first multiparty democratic elections whose result we all know. And when the Ngwazi finally bowed out of active politics soon thereafter, he appointed Gwanda to lead the party. I would describe Gwanda’s rise to the helm of the MCP as his biggest political achievement ever.
Between then and last year, Gwanda’s political life has been coloured by a bittersweet-to-sometimes very sour relationship with his party deputy-turned boss John Tembo, culminating in a break-up last year when Gwanda bowed out of MCP to form his Republican Party a few months before May 20 elections.
For a party that was only five months old to elections, and although he trailed his two competitors in the presidential contest going by the Electoral Commission’s officials results—released before counting was over—the 16 seats his party got was no mean achievement.
But between last year and now, Gwanda has forged more political marriages than any other politician. The underside of them is that some of them have been for very personal benefits. Barely two weeks after the polls, he signed a memorandum of understanding with the UDF chairman Bakili Muluzi alongside Aford and Mgode. This was clear sign of desperation! But little did Gwanda and his MOU colleagues know what the new man at helm of government was thinking about their agreement.
Gwanda’s hasty decision to sign the MOU with the UDF also disappointed many people who voted for him in the last elections.
Nine months down the line Gwanda has not only ditched the UDF MOU, he has also thrown to the wind all caution and the gains he has made through the RP—a major underside to his ship-jumping style of politics. He seems so desperate again that he does not care about his party with 16 seats in the House and a name, to be swallowed by DPP, a party that does not even exist.
Of course, I know that it is not possible now for him to do a rethink, because he has already neck deep in the muck after allowing himself to be used by being roped in government as a cabinet minister without bargaining for his party. He should have risen above the ordinary politician who is just keen to exploit every opportunity that comes his way to make a few quick bucks. Shame Gwanda, shame.
feedback: stevenhlane@yahoo.com
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