Now is season of political campaigns, business, bribery

The political campaign season is here again. Business is here. Bribes are here. Some elections of 2024 are done and dusted. India. The United Kingdom. South Africa. Venezuela.

In the United States of America, the Republicans are slagging it out with the Democrats. Polls there indicate that the two parties’ candidates, Donald Trump for the Republicans and Kamala Harris for the Democrats are virtually neck-and-neck.

But there it is not the popular vote that matters much in electing a president. It is something else called electoral col lege that determines who wins the presidential election. The 51 States that federate into the USA are weighted dif ferently. Some are considered heavier and more impor tant than others.

It is something that reads like George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where some animals consider themselves as being more equal than others.

The electoral college does not apply Senate and House elections just like our 50%+1 vote does not to parliamentary and local government election voting.

If this was happening in Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, it would have been condemned as undemocratic. But it is in the USA, the home of democracy, the land of the free, and the rich. What is democracy? Doing what the USA says and prescribes, but not what it does. Period.

Here in the Republic that the High Priests call Bagamoyo, elections are nigh. The atmosphere is such that, 12 months away, you would think winners are already known and, so, are losers.

If you live in Blantyre and some parts of the Southern Region, you would think the DPP will automatically, aucun probleme, take over power in September 2025. That is what the people here think, say, and believe. They believe so because they think the parties that have been frustrated out of the Tonse Alliance will automatically support and elect PAM [Peter Arthur Mutharika], who will be 85 years young by election time.

Here Lazarus Chakwera, Kondwani Nankhumwa, Enoch Chihana, and Michael Usi are political petits enfants.

In the eyes of the Mwelans, they stand no chance against PAM, the giant of the DPP.

Now, get out of that city. Drive away from Blantyre, the slowest city in the world, as we did last week in our newly-acquired motor vehicle, the Lisani Terror SUV, and get into the city of dust, also known as Cashgate city, or the Capital City of Malawi. The political atmosphere changes like day and night.

Here, in this city of dust, the Pakatians use their calculators to determine and argue how Chakwera (who will be 70 young years by election time) has already crossed the 51%+1 vote mark.

Like in the slowest city, here in the Cashgate city, the winner is already known.

Now get away into Mzuzu, the city created out of Kabunduli’s land (in case you did not know).

Here, you are not sure what the people really think, politically.

Some think Chakwera’s chances are higher than PAM’s if Chakwera picks a Mpotoan for runningmate. What if PAM picks a Mpotoan as his runningmate? Many are not sure because of the DPP’s quota policy.

Can Aford’s Chihana pull off a surprise? Forget. Some say. Many are not sure whether Aford really matters in the politics of Malawi

There are quite a number who feel the UTM will be the tie-breaker between Chakwera and Mutharika, both of whom will not go past the 50 percent-plus one vote bar.

A re-run will be conducted and tacit alliances will be made. And that is when both will need to court the UTM. From next month we will be criss-crossing our Republic to hear what people say about who should be their leader and why. So, tarry here till we cometh again, next week and the weeks after.