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| Columns |
| Backbencher |
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by
Anonymous, 12 June 2006
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06:48:11
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Try genuine GNU, Mr. President
Honourable Folks, the warning shots were fired as early as Tuesday. When President Bingu wa Mutharika graciously opened this year’s budget session of Parliament, echoing the National Anthem which identifies hunger, disease and envy as enemies of our nation, both MCP and UDF trashed the presidential speech as empty rhetoric.
What next? Your guess is as good mine but muck-rackers allege that the ring has already been set in this august House, ready for another show down between the Mutharika administration and the opposition, especially UDF and MCP.
The last time the two sides fought in Parliament was over the impeachment of President Mutharika. So noisy and confrontational were MPs from both sides of the political divide that Speaker Rodwell Munyenyembe collapsed as he was desperately trying to bring order and restore the dignity of the House. He died later.
Now it appears impeachment still remains. So too the controversial section 65 of the Constitution which, if invoked, may result in the government side losing all but six of its MPs in the august House.
Isn’t it ironic that this tension has emerged hardly a week after Mutharika described his “poaching” into his new Cabinet UDF MP and Nec member Bob Khamisa as well as MCP MPs and Nec members Ted Kalebe and Bintony Kutsaira as reflecting a government of national unity (GNU)?
Yet Mutharika won an applause when, at the swearing of some members of his new and bloated Cabinet, he made the claim that for the first time in the history of Mutharika, he had come up with a Cabinet that truly reflected GNU. Shouldn’t we expect a GNU to nurture consensus instead of conflict as is already the case now?
Which makes me wonder whether those who applauded did so as a matter of duty or indeed from conviction. Does anyone else in government or DPP—apart from the President, himself—really believe there’s now a GNU in Malawi? Analysts and critics tend to think the President is told what he wants to hear—a strategy desperate cronies use when they sense growing intolerance against dissenting views.
Yet, as I have said before, GNU is an issue the President must seriously consider, and not just talk about, for the sake of democracy and unity in Malawi. Although normally GNUs are ad hoc arrangements that allow warring factions to share power in transition from civil strife, our country needs a GNU as we put back on track our derailed democracy. An alternative would probably be calling for early presidential elections.
Why?
First, the President won 36 percent of the votes which means 64 percent of the voters rejected him. Agreed, nothing wrong with this since in Malawi, it is first past the post and not scooping the majority of the votes (in the sense of 50% +1%). But we know that the overwhelming majority of the people who cast their vote for Mutharika were UDF supporters from its Southern Region stronghold.
It is a fact that Mutharika later ditched UDF, formed his own party, DPP, and took some UDF MPs with him. What we do not know is whether or not he still has the mandate of voters after resigning from UDF. The last time he tried to contest for the presidency sponsored by his own party was in 1999 and he failed dismally.
Mutharika’s DPP, we are told, is the ruling party yet there was DPP symbol on the ballot in the 2004 elections. Worse still, the so-called ruling party in democratic Malawi has 100 percent un-elected office bearers. As if that is not enough, DPP only managed to secure six seats in the December 2005 by-elections yet the government side in this august House has built its numerical strength through poaching from the opposition side (despite the provision in the Constitution of section 65).
It requires simple logic to see the fragility of the Mutharika administration. On its own, it lacks the muscle to implement its agenda. So far, it has depended on poaching, a factor which has embittered the opposition to the extent that they take every opportunity that comes their way to raise hell for government. Simply put, the current scenario encourages enmity rather than rivalry between the ruling and opposition sides.
All the more reason why GNU is a necessary neutralising factor in the power struggle between the poaching ruling side and the robbed opposition. Obviously, this GNU isn’t about giving jobs in the Cabinet to individuals from opposition parties. Such divide-and-rule tactics have been tried before and failed.
Rather, the President must swallow his pride and negotiate with Muluzi, Tembo and others on power sharing in the name of GNU. These negotiations have to be held at the party level and tit-for-tat must give way to give-and-take. GNU reflect a blend of policies from its various stakeholders. I believe GNU will bring about unity and give the President peace mind to focus on development knowing that all Malawians are pulling in one direction.
It will also create a conducive atmosphere for parties, including DPP, to prepare well and rule with a genuine mandate from the voters in 2009. Otherwise, we can as well brace for less tolerance, less development but more and more boxing bouts between the Mutharika administration and the opposition on the one hand and the government and but whoever raises a dissenting view, including the media and civil society, on the other.
–– Feedback: backbencher2005@yahoo.com
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