JB ready to Contest in 2019

Former president Joyce Banda says she is ready to return home and contest for the presidency in the 2019 elections as she is willing to serve the people of Malawi.

Banda, who ascended to the presidency in line with constitutional order in April 2012 following the death of then president Bingu wa Mutharika, came third in the May 20 2014 Tripartite Elections won by her rival Peter Mutharika of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who was followed by Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi Congress Party (MCP).

In an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) Straight Talk programme, on Wednesday night, Banda said if Malawians are not interested with her to contest for the presidency, she will respect their decision too.

During the interview, Banda also discussed challenges and opportunities facing women in public office in Africa and around the world and the significance of her Joyce Banda Foundation International.

JB

Responding to a question from journalist Shaka Ssali on her immediate, medium and long-term plans, the former president, who said she is in the United States of America (USA) as a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Global Development and Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington DC, said her immediate plans are to complete the research she is undertaking; present her paper; publish it and return home to Malawi.

She said: “My future plans are for me to continue with my development work. What I am doing is fighting for women’s rights and women’s leadership. But at the end of the day, if you are talking about my political life, it is Malawians that will decide.

“If Malawians are saying that they want me to continue, they want me to stand again, I shall go back home and answer that call. But if they are not interested with me to stand again, that is fine, but I am willing to serve my people.”

Commenting on her life as the first female president in Malawi, Banda said she thinks she is different from other leaders in a sense that she did not plan to become president—as she rose to the high office by virtue of being Vice-President—and that she did not prepare her mind that the next day she would become Malawi’s leader.

Banda also spoke about the devaluation of the currency by 49 percent and its subsequent flotation which she described as the boldest decision during her presidency. She said she made the decision after taking a trip to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde who took her step by step on why Malawi was off course with the IMF.

She said: “She [Lagarde] told me one thing we needed to do in Malawi that my predecessors had not been willing to do was to devalue the currency by 49 percent.

“What that does is that it brings about hardships to the poor so you must ensure that the people that are going to be disadvantaged, who in my country are the majority, must move with you, must understand and must accept that this decision has to be made because this is an unpopular decision.”

Commenting on Cashgate—the plunder of public resources at Capital Hill exposed under her watch in October 2013—Banda said she inherited a situation where money was being looted, but when she was alerted about the same, on September 7 2013, she made an announcement that she would put together a team to investigate and a week later, the first group was arrested.

Banda, who has been out of Malawi since losing the elections, said she was deliberately exiling herself because what she felt is that sometimes when governments change, especially with contentious elections, there is need to create space for the new leader to step in, settle down and work.

Commenting on Banda’s remarks that she is ready to contest for presidency, political analyst Happy Kayuni, an associate professor and head of  the Political and Administrative Studies Department at the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College, said though Banda may have such plans, the current political terrain of the country is not in her favour.

“Even if the current president [President Peter Mutharika] is deemed not performing, I don’t think the alternative can be Joyce Banda in the Malawian political landscape at the moment.

“What is happening now is that most likely we will have emerging prospective leaders and considering that she has been away for too long that I think in the mind of Malawians she is a spent politician,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Kayuni said the former president has played her role and thinking of coming back to campaign for presidency would be wasting her time. n