Where Kamuzu outclassed all others

Honourable Folks, politicians have in the past killed then re-created Kamuzu Day for sheer political expediency. Did they know it was Kamuzu Day on Wednesday?

Coming six days before the tripartite elections on May 20, most of the 12 presidential candidates—perhaps with the exception of MCP’s Lazarus Chakwera—had very little time for anything else other than campaign.

It’s amazing how serious the candidates are with campaign this year. In Blantyre where I live, even local polls have attracted professionals and businesspersons of repute who have invested a lot of their money, time and energy in them.

Such is the passion of fellow residents who itch for our vote so they can lead us in removing the stench that has characterised, in these days of absolute democracy, our once extremely beautiful city also renowned for once being the cleanest in the Sadc region and beyond.

I’m not sure, though, if Kamuzu Day could have been celebrated differently had it not fallen in a month and year of elections. The old man invokes different emotions in Malawians.

While there’s no denying he had class, integrity and vision yet to be paralleled-—let alone surpassed—by any of his successors, the atrocities inflicted on whoever dared assert their dignity as humans during the 30 years of his dictatorial leadership were enough to obscure, if not outright tippex,  the positive side of his legacy.

Come to think of it, isn’t it ironic that after putting up a spirited fight to destroy the stupid life presidency and its attendant one party dictatorship, today government wants us to commemorate as a nation Kamuzu Day in honour of the dictator at the helm of the system we loathed?

There are times when the saying “let the past be the past” holds true. This year we shall also be commemorating 50 years of being an independent sovereign State with very little, if any, to show for it. Kamuzu failed us for 30 of those years, Bakili Muluzi, 10, and Bingu wa Mutharika, eight years.

There’s no Nelson Mandela or Julius Nyerere or even Joaquim Chissano among our leaders and they have themselves to blame for destroying their legacy. If anything, let them be celebrated at the family or party level where the leader will probably be respected and hailed more for who they are than for what’s there to show for their leadership.

But as a country, there’s no escaping the fact that bad and mediocre leadership is responsible for 80 percent of our woes. We are worse off today than ever before and service delivery continues to deteriorate with time, due to mediocre leadership.

In fact, people see 2014 as marking a departure point in the style of leadership. The folks aspiring  for the presidency would be making a terrible mistake to think the electorate will continue praising them in song and dance while corruption continues unabated and public funds are prioritised on presidential travel while hospitals lack essential drugs as well as functioning ventilators and mortuary cold-rooms.

Already business captains whose companies contribute the bulk of the domestic revenue are reportedly making legal consultations on how to ensure that tax revenue is properly accounted for and used only for the intended purpose.

It’s also a matter of time before the civil society unleashed the ‘Arab Spring’ on an indifferent president who let rampant corruption of Cashgate proportions happen on their watch.

But we shall worry about good economic and political governance after crossing the 2014 elections bridge. Kenya, Zimbabwe and Cote d’Ivoire have shown that botched elections yield bloodbath, not development. We should therefore try hard to avoid going their paths at all cost.

Interestingly, there’s no better example than Kamuzu’s on how to avert anarchy in the aftermath of an election. When he realised that he was trailing Muluzi in the 1994 polls, Kamuzu accepted defeat without a fuss, congratulated the winner and urged for peace. He even offered to help if asked.

Contrast that with the skirmishes and useless court cases that have characterised any other elections since 1994. Bad losers only give up after some innocent Malawians have been needlessly hurt. Kamuzu averted all that. Could it be the reason we must still have Kamuzu Day on our calendar?