Lack of political will a high cost to Malawians

As Malawians go through all manner of suffering and pains, the question that most people have in mind is that, why is Malawi the poorest country in the region? The answers to this question can be many. But one of the obvious reasons as to why Malawians are poor is the severe lack of political will by the leadership despite their countless promises during political campaigns. In fact, presidential aspirants are good at making promises whether real or fake. Even those who ask for second terms, they promise to be the best despite obvious failures during their first term of office. For obvious reasons, people take a critical look at promises of a presidential candidate because he has to take care of all Malawians regardless of their political affiliations.

Meanwhile, presidential aspirants are now very busy criss-crossing the country, campaigning for the 2019 elections. These campaigns are characterised by promises to change Malawi to a better country where everyone will have a better life. President Peter Mutharika has joined the band wagon as he is aspiring for a second term. Just like every other presidential candidate, he is making promises, though some of them look impossible to be achieved. One day, as he was campaigning in Mulanje, he was quoted as saying that once people give him a second chance, he is capable of changing Malawi to look like France. This promise does not make much sense to most Malawians after his failed first term. His failures have caused so much suffering. The question on this promise is that why bother talking about France or any other European countries when under his leadership, Malawi cannot even be compared in development to neighbouring countries? With all due respect, President Peter Mutharika has to be more careful when making promises because he has already been in power for five years. Therefore, whatever he promises will right away be compared to his performance during his first five year term, whereby, Malawians suffered a lot. Problems are countless and they range from lack of power to lack of jobs and lack of security in between. For people to believe in his future promises, President Peter Muthalika has to come up with a convincing formula that given another five years, Malawi will change for the better. Failing which, most Malawians will not be carried away by empty promises.

The other most important point to note is that during the past five years, there has been no political will by the Mutharika government. Hence, there have been no corrective measures on the problems Malawians have been facing. One of the most serious problems has been corruption, which has brought the country to its knees. The government just talks about corruption without any solution. It can be suggested that there is no will to control it because those people, who have benefited from it, are from the corridors of power. Due to lack of political will, the government is not even interested to review the laws, especially on punishing those people found guilty of corruption. So far, the punishments do not appear painful enough to deter people from corruption.

It can also be said that due to lack of political will, President Peter Mutharika and his government seem to be very impervious to whatever people of Malawi are saying and more, especially about their suffering. Therefore, it goes without saying that other presidential aspirants should learn from President Mutharika’s failures and prove that they can do better. First and foremost, they must learn to listen to people of Malawi and have political will to save this country from total destruction by presiding over a very weak government with no proper vision.