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| Features |
| Bingu’s paranoia |
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by
Mabvuto Banda, 04 May 2006
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05:02:11
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President Bingu wa Mutharika is not a man to be pushed around. Ever since he delivered his incisive inaugural speech in May, 2004, he has used his position as President to be that man.
Since May, two things have made Mutharika what he is today in the eyes of a public which, in 2004, seemed reluctant to elect him after being hand-picked by former president Bakili Muluzi.
Mutharika’s phenomenal resignation from the UDF removed that caricature of a puppet of Muluzi and secondly his decision to make corruption a major plant of his administration, has earned him praise from donors and won him an IMF aid package suspended in 2003 due to overspending.
More than 20 months down the line, however, Mutharika’s actions have borne strange fruit.
His overzealous push as the new man in charge has left a string of violations of the law in one way or another. Corruption within his cabinet has also reared its ugly head.
His attempt to creatively sack his deputy Cassim Chilumpha saying he had resigned constructively by failing to attend Cabinet meetings, reflected his ability to use his office regardless of anything.
Last week’s arrests of the Vice-President and two others on allegations of plotting to kill the President are the latest violation, says the United Democratic Front (UDF).
“As a party we believe that the arrest procedure should have proceeded with a public announcement of the incident and then a constitutional process of impeaching the Vice-President should have been invoked,” says UDF spokesperson Sam Mpasu.
“The UDF would have gladly supported the impeachment of the Vice-President irrespective of his belonging to the party if at all the alleged plans to assassinate the President have substance,” he said.
The UDF also argues that Chilumpha, like Mutharika, is immune to arrests. “They should have put him under house arrest and not at maximum prison before he is even proved guilty,” says George Mtafu, leader of UDF in Parliament.
But before all this, Mutharika’s first 15 months in power were tainted with corruption especially after the then Education Minister Yusuf Mwawa abused a special client account at the Ministry.
Mwawa implicated the President when he testified both in court and before the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee saying Mutharika knew about the account.
It transpired that at one time the President ordered the withdrawal of K5 million from the consolidated account at the Reserve Bank to finance his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). This action circumvented Parliament, which is the only authority to approve withdrawals from the Reserve Bank of Malawi by the Minister of Finance.
The Committee also discovered that Mutharika was paying school fees for his grandchild using public funds, a violation of the Presidents (Benefits and Salaries) Act.
These scandals, analysts say, left the President more vulnerable and insecure in the face of a strong opposition in Parliament.
Rafiq Hajat, executive director of think tank Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI), agrees.
“He wants sympathy from the public and his actions are so evocative of a very deep-rooted sense of insecurity,” says Hajat “It does seem like a sign of paranoia or may be it may indicate a desire to evoke public sympathy.”
In a government statement released at the weekend, government said the Vice-President hired a South African assassin, a former operative of that country’s security forces and planned to kill the President.
“Dr Cassim Chilumpha confirmed [to the would-be-assassin] his intentions to kill His Excellency so that he, Dr Chilumpha, could then ascend to the High Office,” reads the statement in part.
UDF said the arrest of the Vice-President makes a mockery of the reverence of the office of the Second Highest Citizen in the country.
“Whatever the case, Chilumpha should be presumed innocent until proven guilty before a competent court of law and unless he is impeached, he still remains Vice-President of the country,” the UDF said.
UDF thinks the President has become paranoid.
Journalists have not been spared too. Just like his predecessor, Mutharika has taken control of the state radio and television stations. He is also attacking and discrediting the free press on state radio via the Office of the President and Cabinet or Information Minister Patricia Kaliati.
“Mutharika is proving that he will not tolerate any dissenting views either from the media or the UDF or any other person,” says Bonface Dulani, one of the country’s about five political scientists.
“This treason charge looks like designed for the UDF alone. He first started with Harry Thomson and two others accused of planning to assassinate him. Then came [Abubakar] Mbaya and [McDonald ]Simon and now it is the Vice-President and two others,” worries Mpasu.
“He has become paranoid and thinks every one wants him killed,” he says.
Fifty-four percent of registered voters went to the poll in the May 2004 elections, an improvement from 40 percent in 1999. Helped by state resources and media, a supine Electoral Commission and opposition splits, Mutharika got 36 percent of the votes, the lowest percentage ever scored by a President in the country’s 10-year democracy.
But his decision to leave the UDF, and later form his party, has left him more vulnerable and insecure since his opponents launched an abortive impeachment move last year.
No one can be sure who will win the latest fight between Mutharika and his Vice, but the losers are clear—millions of poor, hungry citizens
There are fears that if government fails to table authentic evidence on the arrests, the next budget sitting would be affected like last session when the opposition demanded that government agrees on the universal fertiliser subsidy before passing the budget, which at that time was crucial to getting the IMF package.
“Chilumpha is a devoted man, a doctor of law and very intelligent that I don’t see him stooping so low to plan [the alleged assassination]. It’s beyond belief and if government fails to prove the allegations, they will find it difficult to govern. This may threaten the budget sitting due in June,” Hajat says. |
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