This week it has all been about UTM Party and its embattled former party leader Michael Usi. This followed Usi’s non-show before a UTM Party disciplinary committee hearing earlier this week.
Consequently, the committee fired Usi, who is also the State Vice-President from the party. Contrary to the expectation that he would seek legal action against his removal, Usi has told UTM not to worry for he will only respond politically.
My simple advice to UTM is: Usi should not make you froth and foam from the mouth. After failing to defend his party presidency at the convention, he is spoiling for a fight with you to give him the much-needed visibility and relevance in the country’s political space. As much as possible, UTM should, therefore, avoid engaging him in a bare-fisted political fight which will only gift him the visibility he is longing for.
That Usi’s behaviour towards the UTM establishment is provocative cannot be disputed. But that is part of his strategy. He was already a Cabinet minister when he was appointed State Vice-President in June following UTM president Saulos Chilima’s death on June 10 2024. Usi’s appointment was a promotion which gifted him a life-long pension. How lucky some people can be? So, what else would someone in his right frame of mind want to fight anybody for if not to please his master and protect his pension?
Usi correctly read the political landscape within UTM and also correctly weighed the options before him. In UTM, he was a rank outsider. And that is why he altogether avoided the party’s elective convention. If he had competed for the party presidency, he would have fallen with a bigger, louder and more bruising thud than the other candidates did because he was the State VP and party president. So, by avoiding the convention, he killed two birds with one stone. Apart from sparing himself the embarrassment of losing the party presidency, like the others did, Usi also saved K20 million in nomination fees and several millions in a campaign he was expected to conduct. He read the writing on the wall very well. The new UTM Party president Dalitso Kabambe won the top job with a whopping 600-plus votes against 24, 21 and 20, or so, for the others, respectively.
Thus, Usi’s preference for a soft political fight against UTM serves him well. It aligns well with his non-combatant approach to politics. He does not want to be chained or bogged down to never-ending court battles. For one thing, no one will know what the dramatist-cum-politician is next up to in his schemes. He will be more like a guerrilla fighter. One day, he ambushes one place and before anybody realises it, he has moved on and is ready with another political ambush elsewhere. He has already been doing it. After electing the new leadership for the party, didn’t some people think Usi was politically ‘finished’? But here we are again with UTM crying wolf against him long after the convention. UTM officials do not want him to use party symbols and colours. They are most riled with the fact that he is still able to draw sizeable groups of party supporters in party regalia to his or government functions.
Again, here is my advice to UTM Party: So far, it has a clean slate. No litany of woes. Unlike both the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and Democratic Progressive Par ty whose systems of administration we are all witnesses of. MCP and its alliance partners promised the moon. Malawians gave them the opportunity to change things for the better. They have done some things but on a balance of scale, they have so much more to do. Malawians are suffering. On the other hand, DPP which was ousted from government for failing the nation, has not offered Malawians anything tangible, other than just reminding Malawians that takhaula. People want much more than just being told what MCP administration has failed. This is where UTM can come in and show that they have what it takes to run a country and improve their lot. Taking a hard line against Usi will get the party nowhere. In fact, although Usi has said he will fight UTM moves politically, he can spoil the broth for the party.
For example, on several occasions he has hinted that the UTM convention was illegal because it did not follow the party’s constitution. Well, people can now laugh him off but he would have the last laugh if he took the legal route to settling his scores with the party. Above everything else, Usi is just looking for political relevance and visibility. Don’t give them to him by fighting him.
snhlane@mwnation.com; Cell: 0888833906
