‘Mutharika should change course before it is too late’
Last month, the Institute of Public Opinion Research (Ipor) released a survey report titled Democratic Governance and People’s assessments of President Peter Mutharika’sone year in office. ALBERT SHARRA caught up with Dr Boniface Dulani, who is behind the research, to find out more on the finding. Excerpts:
You released a survey report that revealed the views of Malawians on President Peter Mutharika’s one year at State House. What motivated you to carry such a survey?
We, at Ipor, were going to the field to do a study to gauge the role of gender and patronage in Malawi’s politics. The timing of this survey coincided with the government clocking one year in office. We, therefore, made the deliberate decision to include questions where respondents were asked to offer their assessment on a number of governance issues. This included questions that assessed the quality of the 2014 Tripartite Elections, performance of elected officials and questions assessing the general economic situation in the country.
Some political commentators argue that Mutharika needs more than a year to be assessed properly because he took over a government with empty coffers due to donor aid freeze and is struggling even to implement a national budget. What do you say?
It may be true that assessments of government performance need to take into account the broader political and economic realities. But I would contend that it is a mistake to assume ordinary citizens do not take these factors into consideration when they offer their assessments in opinion surveys. I would contend further that one year is also long enough for any leader to give a clear indication of where they are taking the country and people are very perceptive of this. We, therefore, cannot wait until four years to ask the people to assess their leaders because by then, it will be too late. I would also suggest that government can use these findings as early warning signs. It is clear that the President and his government have convinced themselves that they are doing a good job. However, when public opinion does not match government’s own positive-assessment, it means that what they are doing is not resonating with the wider public. They, therefore, need to do a better job persuading the public about the viability of their agenda or change course before it is too late.
The survey sampled three districts: Rumphi, Salima and Thyolo. What criteria did you use to settle for these districts?
The first criterion of our sampling was to secure national representation. We had two options in achieving this: first, drawing a nationally representative sample, based on the national population census frame. While a national sample would have generated results that could be generalised on the entire country, this would have meant we would have lost out on a number of factors that were of equal importance for us, especially on the gender dimension of electoral politics. We thus opted for selecting a random district in each region and then conducting enough interviews in such a way that we could confidently extrapolate our findings at the district level. In a nutshell, our approach gave us depth, but compromised on breadth.
Do you think the views reflected in the survey cuts across Malawi?
We can only infer results of any survey on an entire country when the sample is similarly drawn at the national level. This was not the case with our recent study. We, therefore, do not make any claims that the results of our study reflect the views of Malawians in all the country’s districts. The three districts were randomly selected from the larger national set of districts, and it is thus possible that the picture might reflect perceptions in the wider populace. But ultimately, if we want to get a national picture, we need to do a nationally representative survey.
Some argue it is ordinary Malawians who put into power wrong leaders because they do not understand better issues of governance and rule of law, which necessitates academics to conduct such assessments. Did the population you sampled understand better the issues at hand?
I would vehemently disagree with any claim that implies ordinary citizens do not know much about politics and governance issues. If you compare expert governance indices such as Freedom House’s democracy scores against public opinion data, you will be surprised to see that there is a strong correlation between the two, suggesting that expert and public assessment is not as far apart as is sometimes assumed. In our own context, the similarities are reflected in how both our governance experts and the ordinary public tend to agree that the performance of our elected leaders leaves a lot to be desired. The major difference is that while experts can only talk, the public do translate their displeasure into real action by voting out a high proportion of non-performing leaders. This brings to mind the words of Mark Twain when he contended that “The public is the only critic whose voice means anything at all”.
The poll shows that in some districts they do not want the incumbent after a year in office. Can you explain where does good governance meet leaders’ popularity?
Yes, what the findings are showing is that a year into his presidency, Peter Mutharika still has his work cut out in persuading Malawians that he is the right captain of the proverbial ship. Majorities in the three districts remain unconvinced about his leadership performance and many more say they do not trust him, including a majority in his own home district. This does not imply a trade-off between good governance and public trust. Good governance should feed into increased public trust for leaders. Trust, in other words, has to be earned through leaders’ commitment to good governance. Mutharika is seen by a majority in the three districts as not inspiring hope for the future, that he is not performing to their satisfaction a year into his presidency, should be cause for concern for the DPP government. A good leader should reflect on this and seek to change course. To do otherwise is to reduce good governance to something that is abstract and far removed from the people.
The polls’ conclusion says “it might be too early to pass judgment on the Mutharika presidency”. There have been a few promising signs, but some not-so-promising ones as well and the people however, have passed their judgment—and that judgment is mostly negative? This seems to be confusing the take-home message. What should Malawians hold?
While the survey results show a largely negative picture from the people’s view, we also acknowledge that there are a number of initiatives that if sustained, bode well for the country’s future. Take for example the president’s pledge to limit the size of cabinet to 20, the on-going public sector reforms, government’s willingness to allow civil society organisations to exercise their right to demonstrate, to mention, but a few examples. Indeed, in the survey itself, we noticed a rather interesting dilemma for people of Rumphi. While a majority said they are unhappy with Mutharika’s one year in office, a majority was also willing to place their trust in him-possibly because of his promise to construct the Livingstonia-Njakwaroad. We interpret this to mean Malawians are open to changing their negative perceptions of the president and his government.
