Political party candidates and independents are hot on heels of the campaign trail, trying to convince the electorate of their promises before official campaign period for the September 16 2025 closes on September 14. Our reporter JACOB NANKHONYA caught up with one of the independent presidential candidates, ADIL CHILUNGO, who has some reservations with happenings on the political playing field. Excerpts;
Q: How is the campaign going on?
A: We are moving. We are making progress. We have no time for mud-slinging. We are not only promising solutions but where we can we are actually providing solutions. For instance, we are supporting cooperatives to access affordable fertilisers, the folia fertilisers, which I personally have come up with because of my faith in what I am preaching.
Q: As an independent candidate, how are you faring on the playing field?
A: The landscape is very unfair. For instance, while there are different types of support going towards political parties, there is literally nothing that has been deliberately put aside to support independent candidates in the campaign. Nobody has come to us and that also explains why so many independent candidates are not active on the ground. That’s the reality. I am hoping that the playing field shall one day be more levelled, whereby, when you’re talking about campaigning for the presidency, for example, it means you have the interest of the nation at heart and; therefore, that should be recognised as such and support should be provided accordingly.
Q: What do you mean when you say the political landscape is not levelled?
A: Let us take support from the Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD), for example, which targets only political parties that are represented in Parliament. There is also a recent development where the on-going Presidential Debates target only a few candidates, leaving out all independent candidates and others which, the organisers believe don’t have high chances of forming the next government. That needs to change.
Q: Why then insisting on running on an independent ticket?
A:. This is how I am actually seeing this, contesting as an independent candidate frees one from the shackles of political parties. We have seen that most of the political parties, when they get into government, instead of working towards satisfying the needs of the taxpayers, they strive to satisfy the needs of the funders of their campaign who, probably would demand favours in return. For example, business contracts some of which they hardly deliver. This becomes one source of serious corruption in the civil service.
Q: Should we, therefore, say you have already accepted defeat?
A: No, not at all. I and my running mate are campaigning tooth and nail to win the presidency in the upcoming general election. However, we cannot ignore the fact that the playing-field is not levelled for fair competition. This is why we are asking Malawians to listen to facts rather than be moved by form. Form is basically what you see out there when the political parties are campaigning with all the fun-fare being financed by God-knows who? Facts bring out the real issues that will address the needs of the people.
Q: Your campaign messages are skewed towards agriculture, yet the country needs a multifaceted approach?
A: One has to remember that the bedrock of Malawi’s economy is agriculture. We need to accept this fact. All other sectors come as secondary. It is in agriculture where we have a lot of resources for agriculture to prosper. We have sufficient water, good soils, favourable weather; therefore, it is very possible to focus on agriculture and make things work. This could create spillovers to the other developmental needs of the country. For example, if we develop agriculture it is possible for us to be growing three or four times a year. That gives an opportunity for us to produce more of everything we want. Again, that gives us a chance to be exporters of more agricultural products to the region. We are emphasising agriculture because we know how significant it is in improving, promoting and changing our economy from worst to best. An example of this is where we are in touch with cooperatives that have needs in farming such as failure to access inputs and financial capital. We are providing affordable fertilisers, for instance. Once we are voted into power we are going to help them with access to non-interest financing. That is going to be a turning point towards economic liberation for Malawian farmers.
Q: What do you have for the youth?
A: We cherish the importance of skills for development. So once we take over government, we will actually focus on skills training, that will help them to get gainful employment, or better, even if they want to work on their own, they should be able to run businesses using the skills that they will have accumulated. These are skills such as carpentry, welding and other technical skills. We will capacitate the youth with skills that can enhance the mining sector as this is another upcoming industry. We will focus on training, making sure that Malawian youth are able to get the knowledge, the know-how into mining, even if it will mean sending them abroad for further studies.
