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Joseph Chidanti Malunga is our politician of 2017

We have the pleasure, today, to announce our politician of 2017.

In selecting the one politician who, we thought, did something tangible in 2017, we considered a lot of criteria. First, as law abiding, tax paying and human rights respecting citizens of this federal republic, we did not consider sex and gender when making the nominations because we believe that giving credit to people for being male or male is tantamount to discrimination and goes against Malawi’s Constitution, which you can read for good selves.

Instead, we looked for a person who exhibited leadership when this country needed leadership most. We looked for someone who gave us hope that one day, when all this deadwood is gone, Malawi shall prosper and no one, educated or uneducated, poor or rich, powerful or powerless, urban or rural, shall be or behave like someone above the law.

We also looked for someone who persevered and was focussed on achieving the goals of his office’s mission.

We shortlisted a number of people. Peter Arthur Mutharika, or Apita as he is fondly called amongst his supporters, followers and admirers, president of the federal republic of Malawi was nominated for showing leadership and giving us hope. The fact that some Malawians now have a national identity card is an achievement we recorded. That Malawi has had no major fuel shortage since 2014 is something we commended. That there are roads being bitumised in some parts of Malawi was noted and appreciated. We felt convinced Malawi had a President worth his salary.

However, we faulted him for his failure or hesitation to get rid of advisers and colleagues who spoiled his name.  We also found him wanting for his reluctance to fight corruption or prosecute Cashgate dating to his brother’s reign.  We also took away marks form him for telling us that things are better today than they were in 2014. The Malawi kwacha maybe stable, but the price of goods is not.  We don’t believe in paper economics; we believe in economics of the basket. The economy is good when we can afford to buy goods. The rest is podium politics.

Our next candidate was Richard Msowoya who used his power as Speaker of the National Assembly or Parliament, to censure his own Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president and leader of the opposition for implicitly referring to Apita as the Prince of Thieves. That showed to us that as Speaker, Msowoya was above party politics and was ready to instill discipline in any Member of Parliament. Something unprecedented in Malawi multiparty politics. However, we found it difficult to find any other positive performance to qualify him for our precious award.

The third candidate was Chakwera, president of the MCP. His open door policy has enabled the MCP to fan out and get members from other regions than the centre. The roping in of Sidik Mia has energised the MCP and people now have faith that Malawi’s oldest political party is indeed the government-in-waiting.  However, his failure to unite his party, discipline once and for all errant his party’s district chairpersons, and convince Malawians that MCP is ready to govern took away crucial marks from him.

The fourth person we nominated was Grezeder Jeffrey, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) secretary general. We found Jeffrey to be strong-willed, open-minded and, of course, open-mouthed. Despite the DPP winning just one in six seats under contest in recent bye-elections, Jeffrey always gives hope to her party followers.  However, she lost marks for her divisive, some say unsolicited and uncouth utterances to the effect that people from Northern Malawi cannot produce a president and should, ipso facto, stop exercising their political rights to join parties of choice and just join the DPP.

The sixth person we nominated was Grace Obama Chiumia. She is young, only 40-years-old, and hard working. The mistakes she makes sometimes, such as instructing the police to arrest National Registration Bureau (NRB) officers, emanate from her love for her president and her party. However, we thought her call for Apita to be life president was outrageous and she lost good marks. She is usually in the newspapers for the wrong reasons although she apologises.

The last person we considered was Joseph Chidanti Malunga. Honestly, we did not know much about him until when he chaired the Joint Committee of Parliament that probed Maizegate, Part 2. Part 1 occurred during the president of Bakili Muluzi.

Malunga and his colleagues persevered insults, even from some journalists, who thought the inquiry would come to null. However, Malunga was focussed, knowing that the future of Malawi lay in serious, focussed, and persevering political leaders. When the inquiry was concluded, the recommendations were not different from those of the Msosa Inquiry instituted by President Peter Mutharika. The ACB was activated.

If today Maizegate Part 2 is being prosecuted in court, it is mostly because of Joseph Chidanti Malunga’s determination to get the truth out and to ensure that no one in Malawi, including those from the ruling party, is above the law. That’s why Joseph Chidanti Malunga is our politician of 2017.

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