Three months to the September 16 General Election, the latest Afrobarometer survey has revealed that support for the country’s democracy is on the decline.
The results, released on Thursday, show that in 2012 support for democracy stood at 76 percent, but that has dropped to 53 percent, representing a 23 percent slump within the last 12 years.
They also show that just about 39 percent of the country’s citizens are satisfied with the way democracy is functioning, falling from 53 percent in 2012.
“Indeed, a majority of survey respondents say Malawi is ‘a democracy with major problems’ or ‘not a democracy,’ even though most also say they feel free to join any political organisation and vote for candidates of their choice,” reads the survey results.
a previous election .| Nation
The results were released by the Zomba-based Centre for Social Research (CSR), an arm of the University of Malawi (Unima) that conducts and promotes applied social science research.
During the survey, the Afrobarometer team in Malawi interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1 200 adult citizens in August 2024. A sample of this size yields country-level results with a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.
In an interview yesterday, CSR director and Afrobarometer national investigator for Malawi Joseph Chunga said the decline in support for democracy was not a phenomenon for Malawi as it has also been registered across Africa.
However, Chunga said the key factor for the decline was the failure by different governments to deliver public goods to citizens’ expectations.
Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD) executive director Boniface Chibwana attributed the development to various issues.
“If you look at issues of active citizenship there is a major decline now compared to how we have fared the past 10 years.
“This is the case because majority of Malawians are not interested to participate in elections, governance or civic space in their localities,” he said.
Chibwana also observed that there is a decline in social accountability for citizens to question their leaders in terms of service delivery and their performances.
“People have just resigned to fate and this is dangerous to the country because issues of checks and balances shrink and, as a country, we cannot develop,” he said.
But human rights advocate, governance commentator and public policy observer Undule Mwakasungula believes the country’s democracy is thriving despite the challenges.
“I can agree and disagree with the results. Yes, we are facing challenges like corruption, which hurts people’s livelihoods, and we have struggled with socio-economic rights, leading to persistent poverty. These undermine our democracy in one way or the other.
“However, we are working to make democracy succeed. For example, we have regular elections, freedom of speech and association and many pressure groups are active and taking duty bearers to task,” he said.
Malawi Congress Party spokesperson Jessie Kabwila said while the news is not good to hear, as a governing party, it is not surprised because the better part of the period mentioned, the country was led by leaders who presided over the foundation of death of democracy.
“For any development to take place the major vehicle is democracy because when a leader is democratic citizens’ participation in every initiative is guaranteed so the decline is a cause for worry.
“But we are not surprised since the better part of the years assessed were years MCP had not gotten back into government so the type of leadership we had then led us to this situation,” said Kabwila.
Main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) secretary general Peter Mukhito also supported the survey outcome, but put the blame on lack of accountability on the country’s leaders.
“There is huge gap between our expectation and what is happening. Malawians must indeed be unhappy because there is no growth in every aspect of life that is why people have lost trust in the whole thing called democracy. As a nation our leaders need to discuss the future of the democracy we must have.
“One of the reasons the support for democracy is declining is because our leaders are not held accountable. They come into government, but fail to develop despite long lists of campaign promises but are left without being held accountable,” he said.
Afrobarometer is a pan-African, non-partisan survey research network that provides reliable data on African experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance, and quality of life.
So far, nine survey rounds in up to 42 countries have been completed since 1999.
