Serving the people of Malawi
People who aspire for political leadership positions such as presidency or being a member of Parliament always claim that they want to serve the people of Malawi to achieve a better life. This is mostly not the case. Everyone knows that the positions mentioned above are the most highly paid jobs and this is why people are attracted. Serving Malawians is secondary.
In an independent Malawi, there has been five presidents, namely Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Bakili Muluzi, Bingu wa Mutharika, Joyce Banda and currently Peter Mutharika. Dictatorship aside, Kamuzu had a meaningful agenda for serving the people of Malawi. He was very focused in improving the lives of ordinary people in the country. He knew that to achieve this he had to first of all make farm inputs affordable and provide a market through Admarc, which bought every crop offered. In the end, most subsistence farmers had money.
In addition, Kamuzu left an indelible mark on infrastructure development and service delivery. This is why every government building worth talking about was built during his era. One cannot forget the high standards by civil servants. Education was at commendable level so were the medical services and other parastatals. All what is stated here was possible because corruption was totally unacceptable, let alone, stealing of public resources. It was against what is stated above that Kamuzu used to claim that during his rule the economy was ever booming. He really gave Malawi a servant leadership.
The above type of leadership is currently lacking. Poor Malawians are just being used as tools or stepping stones for people to get into power. The poor are promised all manner of benefits which end up as empty promises as they return to their dishonourable positions and continue to suffer.
Experience has shown that during political campaign, candidates say that they are ready to serve the people of Malawi though voters usually have doubts because some do not look intelligent enough. Patrick Lumumba of Kenya once stated that there is no magic in the ballot box. If one is a dunderhead, the mere fact that he or she has been elected does not convert them to anything else but they remain elected dunderheads. Such people still claim to be serving Malawians even if they do not have the slightest idea about servant leadership.
Meanwhile, it does not take long to realise that the President is not serving the people but his own interests. Malawi would have not been brought to its knees if President Mutharika had been serving all the people of Malawi. It is human nature that he claims to have done a lot and needs to be re-elected for a second-term. It is up to the people of Malawi to bring change.
At the moment, Malawians are looking forward to a fresh presidential election because the ConCourt nullified the May 21 2019 elections due to alleged irregularities by MEC.
Meanwhile, most candidates and voters do not want MEC to manage elections. But MEC is adamant. What MEC seems not to know is that this is not the time to show how tough they can be. If they are not wanted, why not just leave, instead of being publicly disgraced. They must know that they are creating delaying tactics. It goes without saying that they can use all the tricks, but the change will still come in Malawi as per citizens’ demand.
