|
|
|
|
| Opinion |
| Lessons from other countries |
|
by
D.D. Phiri , 28 October 2003
-
09:49:34
|
A good political scenario is the one where the victorious political party has won at least 60 percent of the seats and its leader has won more than 60 percent of the votes. In such a situation the majority of the people are behind the party and the person in office. They have the democratic right to pursue their policies.
A situation where the winning presidential candidate gets less than half the votes cast and opposition parties outnumber the ruling party in parliament is not conducive to lasting political stability. The president and his colleagues will constantly be surrendering their policies and programmes so as to appease the opposition. Very likely matters will just flow about endlessly without definite direction. Non-governmental organs may become powerful enough to challenge the official ones.
I heard from the radio that the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) in Zambia at a recent indaba recommended that a presidential candidate ought to win at least 50 percent of the votes. If I heard correctly this means that if at the first round none of the candidates wins an outright majority there will be a rerun.
I do not know what our Constitution says at present. During the last election the winner did win more votes than any of the other three contestants, but his votes did not go up to 50 percent. The opposition tried to get the courts declare the results null and void, but failed.
Looking at the potential presidential candidates for the 2004 election I fail to imagine which of them will win with a clear majority. It requires someone charismatic appeals to carry the day with flying colours. The Constitution must provide for a rerun should none of the candidates win at least 50 percent of the votes. The rerun will be between those with the highest and next highest votes. The country will then be faced with only two candidates as in the majority of the American presidential elections and as was the case in Kenya.
The Zambians are said to have recommended that the vice president should also be elected by the people, instead of being hand-picked by the president. I would not recommend this procedure for Malawi. For the sake of political and cabinet stability it is much better that the personalities of the president and his or her vice should be complementary rather than contradictory.
This can be achieved only if the president is allowed to appoint someone he or she is sure can get on well with. It would be unhealthy for the politics of the country if the president and the vice president are constantly bickering and they continue to cohabit because both of them owe their positions to the electorate.
Where a president appoints a vice like any other of the cabinet he or she is free to dismiss him or her if they prove unsatisfactory, and appoint someone else. Let us not forget that in the last resort it is the president, and the president alone, who will be condemned if the government’s performance proves unsatisfactory. Our fear of autocracy should not make us forget the disadvantages of a powerless incumbent. Anarchy is worse than dictatorship.
The coalition that has been forged between the UDF and Aford is similar to that which was formed between MCP and Aford in 1999. Both coalitions are peculiar and are not in keeping with practices in others countries where democracy has taken roots.
The normal practice is that when the coalition takes place before the election the parties concerned emerge and become one party. Voters are no longer offered choices between the parties that have formed the coalition. The Rainbow Alliance in Kenya swallowed up all the other parties. In Nigeria coalitions took the same form. The right thing for the UDF and Aford would therefore be to form one party and this party would field one candidate in every constituency. They might call the party UDF/Aford coalition party.
Alternatively the two parties would contest every constituency under separate banners. Should either of them win most of the seats but fail short of an overall majority then they may negotiate terms of a coalition at that stage.
Chakufwa Chihana has been quoted as saying that he does not have the qualities to make a president, and that this is why he is supporting Bingu Mutharika’s presidency. What some of us remember is that when Chihana contested for the presidency in 1994 he collected more votes than Mutharika did in 1999. If he has lost self-confidence would it not have been better to vacate the hot seat and invite any other Aford leader to try his luck in the coming elections?
This is what defeated leaders in the British democratic system do. If Chihana handed the leadership to someone else such as the articulate and personable Dan Msowoya the chances are Aford would re-group and re-establish itself as a national party. At present Aford is a mere shadow of its vigorous past.
The news from Kenya about the judiciary is both interesting and alarming. We understand half of the judges and a third of the magistrates have been uncovered to be corrupt. How did a situation like this come about. Even in the days of one-party rule both under Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi, Kenya enjoyed a vigorous and independent press. Why did the press not express these miscreants before the Mwayi Kibaki government came on the scene.
The ‘Rights’ organisations in Malawi and abroad seem to be more concerned with condemning a government that tries to muzzle and intimidate judges than to blow whistles when a judge’s verdict seems to defy common sense.
Lord Acton of Britain said power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power is not merely political as some people tend to assume. Anyone who is in a position to do or say something that affects the lives of other people has power. If that person is left to do whatever he or she feels and likes one day we will wake up to find that some of our saints have been serving Satan.
It is a pity we no longer see East African newspapers here. It would be beneficial to follow in detail what the accused judges actually did — of which they are being accused. |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
