We are in a political-alliances season, where yesterday’s sworn enemies suddenly find each other charming, and principles are as bendable as all previous manifesto promises after elections. The pawns are moving, and the political matchmakers are working overtime.
Some parties are still acting coy, swearing they are running solo while flirting behind the curtains. Others have already started removing their masks, giving voters early peeks into who they’re likely to support ahead of voting day.
But if history is anything to go by, and as many statesmen and women have observed, these pre-election pacts are more often marriages of convenience than unions of ideology and many times voters know how it ends.
Since the return to multiparty democracy in 1993, pre-election coalitions in Malawi have largely served as ladders for climbing to power, not blueprints for national transformation. Once the dust settles and the votes are counted, most alliances either crumble under the weight of broken promises or mutate into bitter rivalries marked by betrayal and mistrust.
The reasons for these perennial failures are not elusive. In mature democracies, coalitions often emerge from a convergence of political ideologies, shared policy goals or negotiated governance frameworks. In Malawi, they tend to be transactions of convenience or desperate bids for power, not roadmaps for reform. In essence, our politicians build temporary structures designed to win elections, not to govern afterwards. When the unions are no longer needed, the partners return to their corners, resentful, marginalised or disillusioned.
The Tonse Alliance remains a textbook case. Formed in the aftermath of a court-ordered fresh presidential election in 2020, it was a pragmatic vehicle for dislodging a ruling DPP party that had become synonymous with ‘the system’. At face value, Tonse was an ambitious attempt to consolidate opposition support under a unified front. But beneath the surface, it was already weighed down by unresolved leadership rivalries and undeclared ambitions.
So, the deeper problem with alliances in Malawi lies not only in the architecture of the coalitions but in our collective unwillingness to do the hard work of democratic governance. We treat coalition-building as an event, not a process. Once the joint press conference is held and the campaign colours are harmonised, the work of creating shared policy platforms, transparent power-sharing agreements and clear mechanisms of accountability is largely ignored.
Already, as September 16 approaches, we are once again witnessing the early dance of possible coalitions. The same familiar faces are holding informal consultations. Statements of “working together” are being floated. Calculations are being made. One can only hope that this time, those pursuing coalition politics will prioritise substance over symbolism.
More importantly, any serious alliance must put Malawians first, not egos, not positions, not personal ambition.
If alliances are to be more than electoral gimmicks, they must be underpinned by properly negotiated documents open to public scrutiny. They must feature real commitments on governance style, economic policy, decentralisation, anti-corruption, and institutional reform. Crucially, they must place the voter—not the politician—at the centre of their mission.
Until we take coalitions seriously, we will continue to witness what we always have are alliances formed in campaign tents and dissolved in public, partnerships built on suspicion, not solidarity and political gymnastics mistaken for democratic progress.
And so, 2025 impending alliances, like all pre-election coalitions in the past, may soon become another entry in Malawi’s growing ledger of marriages of convenience—dramatic in their inception, disappointing in their execution and disowned when the time comes for accountability. Let’s wait and see!
