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| Columns |
| Backbencher |
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by
Anonymous, 15 July 2006
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05:10:46
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Charity begins at home Mr. President
Honourable Folks, here’s an attempt at giving wings to President Bingu wa Mutharika’s Independence Day call for patriotism: kindly focus the anti-corruption drive more on the protection of the current public purse (than on netting UDF fat cats for past crimes) and seriously consider granting amnesty against prosecution to former president Bakili Muluzi.
What, you might ask, has my proposal got to do with patriotism?
The answer is simple: Mutharika would only be doing this for the sake of peace and national unity—a key to the generation of wealth and the realisation of his inauguration pledge to transform our status from rags to riches— and not necessarily because Muluzi is innocent. He will also be serving the greater national interest of reconciling the divided Malawi nation by sacrificing the smaller interest of gaining political mileage by getting tough with the wounded UDF which won the 2004 presidential elections but lost the presidency.
Ever since the President ditched UDF—the party which sponsored him—to form his own DPP, Malawi has been reduced to a mere rope for a tug-of-war between Mutharika and his supporters on the one hand, and Muluzi and his supporters on the other. Mutharika has used the state machinery at his disposal to woo some key opposition leaders to defect to DPP or serve in his government. He has also made some high profile arrests on treason and corruption charges.
On his part, crafty Muluzi has managed to rope in the support of MCP president John Tembo and, until his demise, Aford czar Chakufwa Chihana. Together, this opposition alliance has translated into significant numbers both inside and outside Parliament pulling in the opposite direction and creating hell for government.
Their plot to remove the President by impeachment forced Mutharika to devote time, energy and public resources to his own political survival and his pledge to separate party from government affairs became compromised as he turned more and more to the Machiavellian thinking that the end justifies the means.
Consequently, instead of upholding the constitutional provision for free press, Mutharika’s administration is busy searching for means to put independent media on a short leash. As for public broadcasters—TVM and MBC— they are under so much pressure to churn out pro-government propaganda that they even violate the laws prohibiting broadcasters from biased coverage of political parties in campaign times.
Vice-President Cassim Chilumpha (UDF) may have to answer for treason in court but it is important to remember that government tried to circumvent the Constitution (which stipulates that only Parliament can impeach the Veep in the case of serious violation of the Constitution or written laws of the land) and have him removed by the controversial process of constructive resignation whose legality is also yet to be determined by the courts.
I would like to believe that Mutharika’s war against Section 65 of the Constitution — which requires MPs who defect from the sponsoring party to another party represented in Parliament to go back and seek a fresh mandate from the voters — is also largely influenced by his narrow interest to protect the many MPs who defected to the government side from UDF, MCP and Aford without whom his administration will be kicked like a football by the opposition in the august House.
I’m sure you too could cite many other cases of how the President has been forced to make his own political survival a priority at the expense of the larger national good. Suffice to say, for the past two years, it has largely been a stalemate between Muluzi of the kuphwetsa chubu (tube deflation) fame and Mutharika of tit-for-tat fame.
Now that Muluzi has openly said no to impeachment, saying UDF will just have to reorganise and prepare for the 2009 general elections, won’t it only be an act of patriotism for Mutharika, who defined patriotism as putting Malawi first, to ‘forgive’ any possible abuse of power by the former President on whose shoulders Mutharika perched to reach the presidency and all its trappings?
I believe that just as my idol Nelson Mandela gained a lot for South Africa by resisting the temptation to drive perpetrators of apartheid into the Indian Ocean, Mutharika can put our democracy and development agenda on a firm foundation by resisting the temptation to throw into jail Muluzi and his cronies. Instead, the President can still protect public funds and other resources from abuse by enforcing zero-tolerance for corruption, inefficiency and extravagance among those privileged to hold public offices in his own reign.
–– Feedback: backbencher2005@yahoo.com
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