Off the Shelf

PAC that keeps rising from dead

 From the Public Af fairs Committee (PAC’s) mission, one learns that this is one of the country’s key civil society organisations in the field of human rights, mediation, advocacy, electoral processes, religious co-existence and peace and security, to name but a few of the issues it deals with.

Specifically, its mission is to ‘mobilise the general public through the religious community and other stakeholders in p romoti ng democ rac y, development, peace and unity through civic education, mediation and advocacy’.

But to what extent is the organisation still seen fulfilling this mission?

PAC was founded in 1992 by the religious community and other pressure groups in Malawi to enter into a dialogue with Kamuzu Banda’s Presidential Committee on Dialogue. This was during the transition period from the one-party to the multiparty system of government in Malawi.

To date, after existing for three decades, I can attest to the fact that the group has worked with a large number of partners and implemented a wide variety of activities and has an impressive list of accomplishments. In its hay days, PAC would rebuke political parties when they do not practice democratic principles on leadership succession. The parties would listen. PAC was thus one of the leading governance institutions that fought former president Bakili Muluzi’s bid for a third term in 2003.

But my observation is that over the years, its influence has waned and so has its visibility, and therefore its relevance as well.

For example, since the 2020 court sanctioned fresh presidential elections, PAC has not only been dormant but also skewed in its activities, only reminding Malawians it exists when it has an audience at State House. Thus, the body’s glory very much remains in its past accomplishments.

In its early days, when it spoke, not only did people listen but also acted. That was in its hays days. The best it can do now is to bask in its laureates. How one wishes it did more than before.

After being very active during the run-up to the fresh presidential elections, the last time PAC resurfaced was in November 2023 when it released a statement after meeting President Lazarus Chakwera urging him to be decisive and sensitive in finding solutions to ease the suffering of Malawians.

Then it reappeared last week when it had an another audience with Chakwera. During last week’s meeting it delivered a litany of woes for Chakwera’s administration to make right. Nothing wrong with that. But I am hesitant to attribute the body’s dormancy to the fact that its executive members have overstayed. They came into office in 2019 for a three-year tenure, and remain in office two years after their mandate expired. That should not be the cause of the group’s dormancy. The committee recently justified itself stating that the PAC board of trustees extended their mandate.

But after their tenure expired, we can say without fear of contradiction that the executive members are now indirectly serving a third term. The same practice for which PAC criticized Muluzi on his third term bid. However, it is not rocket science to notice that the practice is a breach of accountability, one of the very foundations upon which the quasi-religious body was built and projects a moral authority. PAC needs to walk the talk on internal governance before it can stick out its tongue preaching the same to others.

What is conspicuous about PAC now is that it is absent when it is needed most. Take the spiral of political violence which has rocked the country over the past nine months or so since the Mbowe Filling Station incident in Lilongwe.

A week does not pass without political parties or their agents unleashing violence at each other thereby poisoning the electoral space in the run-up to the September 16 General elections this year. Since the Mbowe incident, both the opposition and ruling party have been on the receiving end of violence. Where has PAC been? Not once since the Mbowe Filling Station incident when the Malawi Congress Party was accused of unleashing havoc at organisers of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Blue Night, followed by many other incidents on both ruling party and opposition members, have I heard PAC condemning the perpetrators of violence.

If PAC cannot come out against such undemocratic practices, then what is it there for? By now, PAC should have sat down all major political parties and made them sign peace accords and commitments to run violence-free elections. That is what PAC has been known for over the years. That is what has given PAC its good name. But the current executive is either sleeping or basking in its past glory. Its meeting with Chakwera last week after a two-year hibernation, was thus like the group had risen from the grave— emerging from nowhere like a ghost, only to disappear again as soon as it came. This is the more reason the group needs to usher in new executive members who can come with new ideas and put the organisation back on its trajectory of making Malawi a better place through its governance role.

snhlane@mwnation.com; Cell: 0888833906

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