Interview: ‘Change will only come from below, not above’

Fifty years after independence and 20 years after attaining multiparty democracy, Malawi’s political development seems retrogressive. I speak with political analyst Boniface Dulani to explain Malawi’s politics.

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Q:

If you look at the current political settlement, how would you describe it?

A:

Recent events in this country suggest that ours is a very defective political settlement, resulting into bad and retrogressive politics. There are two sides emerging from this defective settlement: on one hand, political elites that work in collusion to solely promote their self-interests and an angry and disgruntled public that pay more but gain nothing on the other side. The two sides are separated by an ever widening chasm of disillusionment and mistrust. In the end, the country is unable to resolve even the simplest socio-politico challenges that would lay the foundations for a prosperous future. The situation is further exacerbated by the absence of a leadership that is willing to work towards finding lasting solutions, as a result of which the same old problems and issues continue to define our politics. Instead of dealing with the core political issues that can potentially transform the country towards a prosperous future, we are constantly attending to peripheral matters that only satisfy individual egos and pockets.

Q: Did you envision this settlement?

A:

A political settlement is a function of collective processes, negotiated between political elites and ordinary citizens. If citizens abrogate their role in a democracy and delegate complete power to politicians, we end up with settlements like ours, where politicians put their interests above those of the nation without any care. The political elites—from the President, Cabinet ministers, judges, members of Parliament down to councillors—consider themselves to be a different genus from the ordinary masses. They go ahead and give themselves hefty salaries and benefits, enabling them to live lives fit for royalty when the people who pay for this opulence are wallowing in abject poverty. Despite early, and only verbal, indications from President Peter Mutharika to take the country on a different trajectory, there is no evidence that our politics is likely to move in a new direction. Within a few days of entering State House, Mutharika quickly resorted to the default settlement, the one that the majority of our existing crop of politicians is most accustomed to. So, while I did not envision the current settlement, I am not at all surprised it is what we have. Change will only come from below, not from above.

Q: How do you assess Mutharika’s leadership capacity to deal with this settlement?

A :

Despite claiming he would move away from the politics as usual model at his election victory speech, Peter Mutharika has not demonstrated an understanding of the nature of the existing settlement or laid out any clear agenda for taking us towards a new direction. The only time we have heard from the President at length was during the State of the Nation Address. However, even that came across as a hodgepodge of ideas that did not provide a clear sense of what his priorities are. I will go far and say that at least under Joyce Banda administration, government policies were geared towards economic recovery, even if the reality on the ground was often different. In Mutharika’s case, there is simply no clear overarching agenda that would suggest a capacity to take the country on a new path.

Q:

If you look at the President’s salary hike against public outcry for the same, what leadership clue does this suggest about Mutharika?

A:

This decision and its timing speaks more to the President’s lack of leadership skills and political astuteness. At a time when the economy is in a free-fall, a good leader should have led by example and turned down this salary hike. In this regard, Mutharika could have learnt from his predecessor, Joyce Banda, who took a rather symbolic pay cut at a time when the economy was in similar dire straits. By increasing his salary by a hefty 80 percent, with matching or even higher increases for Cabinet ministers, leader of opposition and Members of Parliament, Mutharika’s government has lost any moral ground for saying no to the demands by the striking Judiciary and university staff, whose demands for 45 percent salary increases now look very modest. When put alongside the stories about First Lady, Gertrude Mutharika’s Beautify Malawi (Beam) Trust obtaining funds from the National Aids Commission, the President’s salary hike suggests a leader that is completely out of touch with the public mood. The government’s claims of insufficient resources for salary increments will no longer sound credible. After this blunder, the government should brace themselves for more strikes.

Q: What kind of leadership does Mutharika need to show in these times?

A :

In the run-up to the 20 May general elections, the buzz word was “transformational leadership.” The country, in other words, was looking for a leader that is willing to depart from conventional politics by making and implementing decisions that will form the building blocks for transforming the country from its present status that is defined by deep-rooted and widespread poverty. After the elections, whose results gave no clear majority to any single parliamentary bloc, the need for transformational leadership became even more imperative. Mutharika has so far failed to demonstrate that he has the personality or skills to be that elusive transformation leader that Malawi has been seeking. Thus far, he has not made any notable decisions, especially on the economic front, that suggest he has a vision or agenda for transforming the country. The majority of his decisions and actions have so far followed the old script, mostly placating his DPP co-partisans and a palpable favouritism of his Lomwe co-ethnics. Despite claiming that his government would hit the ground running, the Peter Mutharika administration has actually gone the opposite direction, with the President becoming well known for his now-patented approach of making piece-meal appointments and slow decision-making.

Q: Anything you want to add?

A :

We should perhaps not be surprised that our citizen number one has chosen to insulate himself from the many challenges that the country is facing. During his late brother’s administration, he equally failed to demonstrate leadership when such was required from him. Indeed, one recalls a Zodiak Radio study that found Peter Mutharika was among a dubious group of six legislators that never uttered a single word for two years in Parliament. Expecting such an individual to change now that he has become President is perhaps a tad un-realistic on our part as voters.