Can JB win the elections?
From the vibes going around time, the story is that the outcome of the presidential elections is too close to call.
There are some reasonable suggestions that Amayi Joyce Banda could in fact win and be reconfirmed as President of this great country.
There are also suggestions that Peter Mutharika has a fair shot at the seat and so have Lazarus Chakwera and Atupele Muluzi.
While some people are choosing which story to believe as to who wins the presidency or not, I would like in this article, to explore what would happen if JB wins the elections.
What if she does?
The first thing to say is that JB, just like any of the three other closest contenders to the seat, can actually win.
If she wins, fair and square, this would be due to many factors. The incumbency factors may be at play and this is not bad to have.
The availability of State machinery at her disposal helping her in her campaign may be what she needed to charm us.
JB is a persuasive orator to the common man. Much of what is said from her podium is not essentially complicated, university-type classroom material in terms of frameworks, models, theories and concept.
JB speaks plainly, common market everyday language that many of our people want to hear.
Many of our people are less interested in having to bring to the country concepts, frameworks and patterns of moving the country from one abstract reality to another reality.
Malawians want to hear things like: I come from this community and you also come from this community, I am one of you.
JB has used her Yao upbringing, Tumbuka and Tonga language fluency to great advantage.
Our people want someone who they can identify with. They are charmed by the blazing convoy lights and the glitz and glamour that come with the presidency.
We, as a people worship, rich people and JB has appeared to be one such person. But she has also confused us by sitting on the mat with the poor folk, carried a water bucket with the common woman.
Malawians want a friend who will one day help her carry water buckets, change the child’s diapers when the parents are sick.
JB has demonstrated that she can just do that when the need arises. Our people want such an individual.
JB has been generous with the State coffers and the money she has been getting from well-wishers. She has built houses for the poor, given them cows and she has promised that she will do more of these if given a chance.
In an environment where many households would only live in a decent house if it was a dream, JB has played the magician.
Today, the neighbourhood looks nondescript and dejected. In just two weeks’ time the community is transformed through Mudzi Transformation Trust? We like magic and JB plays the magician to good effect.
Should JB win the elections? This is the question that Malawians and eligible non-Malawians will try to answer on May 20 2014. Will the country be too bad if she won? I don’t think so, but we will gain some and lose some.
I expected that you would see this in the case of randomised trials, considering your background. Simply put, we have two study sites; one with mudzi transformation, the other without. This position has a serious flaw in that it is too generous to attribute votes to mudzi transformation intervention. This is a serious flaw as this program has not benefitted everyone, let alone to assume that the people are just as likely as happy as those who have not benefitted from the program. Now consider this, people in the rural areas (the majority with 85%, and conservative to change) still remember Bingu, and, unfortunately in their ignorance, associate APM with Bingu whose party did away with famine in Malawi. There has not been an alternative JB has offered to the rural masses since the demise of Bingue. Instead, it is the people in town that JB had done more than in the rural, principally, making sure that there is gas in filling stations. Unfortunately, these are the same people she has alienated herself from through economic reforms.