No time for talk show

A lot has been said and written about the State Opening Address speech delivered by President Peter Mutharika on November 6. The speech which ended in a record time of 23 minutes shocked many for various reasons.

There are those who found it shocking that the president delivered one of the shortest speeches in history and then there are those such as opposition leader in Parliament, Lazarus Chakwera, who were shocked that the speech offered no solutions and suggestions on how government intends to alleviate the social-economic hardships Malawians are facing.

Chakwera had a field day in Parliament on Monday last week. The MCP president who is better known for his eloquence and flawlessness in the Queens’ language, described Mutharika’s speech as a “Zero plan speech”. On the other hand, Jessie Kwabwila of MCP, described the speech as a tweet or a WhatsApp message. Chakwera further described the short speech as an insult to Malawians.

Well, I think both Chakwera and Kabwila are right to some extent. Where I find them at fault is where they are putting much emphasis on the length of the speech. I also fault Chakwera where he only criticised the speech but also offered zero solutions.

Perhaps the MCP leader need to be reminded that this is not the time for scrutinizing whose speech was short or long neither is it about who is more eloquent. It is rather, time for scrutinizing whose speech offered solutions the problems we have, help develop the country and whose speech saves the interest of Malawians and not one’s political party and ego.

Unlike a TV or radio talk show, Malawians are not going to gauge MCP and government in terms of whose ratings went up during Parliament time or whose ratings dropped. They will gauge both the opposition and government in terms of who brought solutions for led to the betterment of people’s lives. Whether that was done in five minutes or in two hours is not much of people’s concern at the moment.

People out there are expecting Parliamentarians to have mature and meaningful deliberations and not political party publicity stunts. Mind you that you are not in Parliament as judges of an essay writing contest but as representatives of Malawians who are languishing. They expect real talk on real issues. It’s not time for someone to prop up their parties. You will have plenty time to do that during campaign period.

If at all there will be need for the opposition and government to outwit each other, let it be on issues that will change Malawians’ welfare for the better and not about who read a four hours speech. It’s not about opposition winning or government winning but, Malawians should be the ultimate winners at the end of the day.

As such I am not expecting the opposition to oppose for the sake it and neither do I expect the government to defend the indefensible. The expectation is that the opposition will be the voice of reason and that government will heed to the advice given by the opposition and others.

Time for petty political squabbles that do not add any value to people’s lives cannot be tolerated, not this time.

So, for the sake of our country, let us get over the 23 minutes speech and focus on the development of our country and improving people’s livelihoods.