The political terrain in the previous year was characterised by numerous occurrences, and in the current year, it is expected to get more intriguing. Our News Analyst LLOYD CHITSULO had a discussion along those lines with political analyst ERNEST THINDWA. Excerpts.
Q What is your assessment of the previous year in regard to the country’s political terrain in 2024?
A It has been less inspiring, generally. We witnessed not only the collapse of the Tonse Alliance administration following withdrawal of some key parties such as UTM Party, People’s Party (PP) and Alliance for Democracy (Aford), but also continued party fragmentation exemplified by personal interests that flavoured formation of new political parties out of existing ones. Our politics remain largely adversarial and confrontational. Hardly are there indications that major parties can engage in consensus politics on issues of national significance even when ideology-driven politics is not a feature of political competition in our setting. Instead, violence against perceived opponents is a strategy increasingly assuming a central role in gaining electoral mileage.
Q That being said, what triggers political violence as observed in the previous year?
A There are a number of factors that drive political violence. In our context, the principle driver is poverty. Both unemployment and underemployment are very high, contributing significantly to observed poverty levels. Unemployment tends to be highest among the youth, making this social group to be the easiest target for recruitment by the morally-challenged political elite to unleash political violence against perceived political opponents. Another major cause is lack of or discriminate enforcement of relevant law, primarily because of prevailing political environment characterised by political attitudes and norms that promote and entrench impunity and significantly challenge the rule of law. This is to the extent that hardly are there incentives (or disincentives) to guarantee that political violence will be ineffective and costly, and there also exists a fertile ground for impunity for political and electoral violence.
Q What then, is the remedy to political violence?
A Like any social problem, political and electoral violence tend to be a multi-faceted and complex phenomena. Both short and long-term responses will need to be considered. In the short-run, it will be critically vital that the elite on both sides of the political aisle not only condemn publicly and in strongest terms violence perpetrated by alleged own party youth but also facilitate the creation of an enabling environment in which the police can indiscriminately investigate and prosecute culprits including organisers of violence in the party hierarchy.
Q The 2025 general election promises to be a hard-fought race. What should the country anticipate?
A Presidential elections in Malawi since reintroduction of political liberalisation in 1994 have always been fiercely-contested, and often a close call except in 2009 when Bingu wa Mutharika won with unprecedented landslide victory. On the basis of current political party configuration and observed relative party strength reflected through recent elections outcomes and the distribution of potential voter electoral preference captured by the most recent Afrobarometer report released in 2024, we can deduce with a high degree of certainty that the race for State House will be reduced to two parties—Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Drawing on the distribution of electoral preference as highlighted in the Afrobarometer report, 2024 [DPP 44 percent, MCP 29 percent, UTM seven percent and UDF percent] and distribution of parliamentary strength in 2019 [DPP 32 percent, MCP 28 percent, UDF five percent, UTM two percent, PP two percent, Independent 29 percent and others two percent], one can authoritatively assert that there are only three relevant or effective parties in Malawi as of today.
Q How do you categorise those three relevant of effective parties?
A A relevant party in a presidential system is that party with either a chance to win a presidential election or secure legislative majority or may not win but determine the direction of electoral victory or shape legislative majority. We should further understand that the majoritarian electoral systems for which the Fist-Past-The-Post (FPTP) and the 50 percent plus one are variants tend to exact a reductive effect on the number of relevant parties in a given polity. The FPTP which we have employed in the last six electoral cycles is particularly notorious for enforcing the de facto two-party system principally because of the inherent strategic voting incentives it generates.
Q What are those strategic voting incentive?
A The phenomena where a significant portion of the voting population may not vote for a candidate for the most preferred party deemed to have no chance of winning an election but, in attempt to make the vote count, vote for a candidate for the less objectionable party among those with a chance to win an election. The strategic voting practice tends to reduce the relevance of some parties in a polity over time when voters begin to understand how the electoral system works, its effect and adjust preference among electoral alternatives. It may explain the existence of only three relevant parties in Malawi going to the 2025 general elections should all factors remain constant since the Afrobarometer survey in 2024.
