Ah, the glorious dawn of September 16 2025! A day when Malawians, fuelled by nothing but the adrenaline of empty stomachs and the audacity of hope, performed a collective U-turn so sharp that it left the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) spinning in its own rhetoric.
The ballot boxes didn’t just speak; they screamed. With a thumping 56.8 percent, the nation decided that the future belonged to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)—specifically to Mkulukutamoyo—leaving the Pastor-President to contemplate his 33 percent “participation trophy” from the sidelines of history.
It turns out, you can only feed a nation “servant leadership” and “Hi-5” slogans for so long before they start asking why the only thing being served is a 33 percent inflation rate. The economy wasn’t just worsening; it was performing a high-dive into a pool with no water.
Under this administration, the national pastime shifted from football to “extreme queuing”. Citizens spent more time bonding in fuel lines than with their own families, effectively turning filling stations into the country’s primary social hubs while waiting for tankers.
The “anti-corruption” platform, initially polished to a mirror finish, aged like a lemon with a tampered odometer. The fertiliser heist was a feat of modern alchemy: transforming billions in public funds into “phantom manure” sourced from companies that exist only in the spirit realm.
When the promised “clearing of the rubble” turned into “decorating the same rubble with relatives” in diplomatic posts, the public finally realised the “New Malawi” looked suspiciously like the “Old Malawi” but with better-rehearsed speeches.
By the time the President’s style was described as “detached,” he wasn’t just distant; he was orbiting a different planet entirely—one where the tragic demise of a Vice-President and subsequent investigations were handled with all the urgency of a Sunday afternoon nap.
As the Afrobarometer had whispered back in 2024: the honeymoon wasn’t just over; the bride had pawned the ring, the groom was talking to himself, and the house was being sold for parts.
Malawians didn’t just vote for a change in 2025; they voted for a time machine, proving that in the theatre of Malawian politics, the only thing more predictable than a broken promise is the voters’ ultimate revenge at the polls.
The country wasn’t just headed in the “wrong direction,” it was a runaway train with the good Pastor-President at the controls.
All the while, since November 2023, the administration had been performing one of its final miracles: holding fuel prices at K2 734 for diesel and K2 530 for petrol. To achieve this, they simply tossed the Automatic Pricing Mechanism (APM) out the window, choosing to pretend the global market didn’t exist.
Then came Mkulukutamoyo and his DPP ‘wise men’ riding in on a “Rescue and Restoration” platform that promised to fix the crisis by essentially promising everyone everything. Their 90-page manifesto ‘A Return to Proven Leadership and Vision,’ was a tour de force in aspirational fiction, featuring;
lFree everything: Abolishing all secondary tuition and exam fees, plus free cafeteria food for all public university students.
lInfrastructure for all: K5 billion annually for every constituency to build whatever they liked.
lModern comforts: Flush toilets in every market and health posts within 5km of every citizen.
lEconomic sorcery: Stabilising the kwacha and hitting 6.5 percent growth by 2030, all while running a “lean government”.
Remember November 2023? When fuel hit K2 530 and DPP Cabinet ministers showed up at Parliament in sackcloth jackets and gowns—a visceral, high-fashion display of “grief and revulsion”? Well, keep those sacks handy.
Since October 1 2025, the new administration has learned that economic gravity—and global oil prices—still apply.
Previously, DPP cadres dismissed the Russia-Ukraine war’s impact on Malawi’s fuel, fertiliser, and wheat imports, rejecting it as justification for the MCP’s 40 percent fuel hike in November 2023 and the rising cost of living that followed. Now, the tables have turned. While neighbours managed modest 20 percent fruel increases, Malawi’s prices have entered orbit.
On April 1 2026, Mera delivered a “no-prank” shock: petrol and diesel rose by 34 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Since September 2025, petrol has surged 164 percent (from K2 530) and diesel 145 percent (from K2 734).
Despite this, politicians are spinning a bold fiction, blaming the US-Israel-Iran conflict and claiming these spikes are temporary and won’t trigger inflation. They expect us to believe transport and food costs will remain frozen. We haven’t seen anything yet from these “wise men” who, after mocking the automatic pricing mechanism, resurrected it to oversee a 164 percent price leap in just six months.
While the DPP promised to “negotiate a new deal” with the IMF, Malawians are busy negotiating exactly how many kilometres their soles can survive before walking becomes a luxury.
