Malawi UDF in strategic myopia

TWISTER

Like all the opposition parties, it is obvious that the United Democratic Front (UDF) is working day and night strategising on how to bounce back into government. The party’s political strategies obviously involve the polishing up of its Constitution, manifesto and the much difficult task of organising a convention where its torchbearers will be elected.
UDF in my view is justified to spend time in strategising for 2014 elections considering that it is one of the major parties which went into the 2009 general elections without a presidential candidate after one Bakili Muluzi was rejected by the Electoral Commission less than two months before the general elections.
Courtesy of Muluzi’s machinations, the party was thus forced into an electoral alliance that was driven by different ideals and had very little time to be explained to the supporters of the two parties. It was not strange that after Muluzi took party supporters for granted by forming an alliance with the MCP, the UDF performed miserably in the elections.
This was despite the fact that the party had a record of achievements in democratic governance; observance of human rights, the ushering in of free primary education; liberalisation of the airwaves through the introduction of several radios, cellular networks, TV stations; the Masaf programmes, the several hospitals that were constructed, the several roads and infrastructure development programmes; among others.
As the party is busy strategising how to win the 2014 presidential elections, the same Muluzi through his son has thrown in some spanners in the works resulting in creations of divisions within the party.
Muluzi amazes me a lot. This is the guy who fought tooth and nail to change the country’s Constitution to provide for open presidential term. After hitting a blank wall, he never gave up, with the support of his minions he campaigned fearlessly for the infamous Third Term Bill. The unfortunate happened. Malawians through their legislators rejected Muluzi’s Third Terms bid.
Did he give up? Nay! If he had given up on his dream to rule beyond his term limit, he would have handed power to his vice or alternatively choose one of the founding members to succeed him. Instead of smooth succession, he opted for an outsider who in his assumption, believed would be docile and hence allowing him to be ruling for the third term through him.  The ploy was that after Mutharika first term, he would turn around and hand over power to Muluzi, an arrangement that has perfectly worked well for former Russian leader Vladimir Putin whose successor the current Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said the current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin should run for the top job in 2012.
Putin had already served two terms as president before  Medvedev took over in 2008.
But in the Malawi scenario, the game plan went haywire. Mutharika confounded his predecessor by becoming his own man.
Probably seething with emotions that his open term bid flopped, his third term bid failed, his attempt to rule through Mutharika became disastrous, his 2009 comeback hit a blank, Muluzi wants another comeback in a fashionable way; and this time it’s through his son Atupele who is copying the same old worn-out cliché “Kaya wina afune kaye asafune zinthu zisintha” which has just been rebranded through basic translation and called “Time for agenda for change.”
Strangely Muluzi’s comeback through Atupele has been welcomed without questions as to who really wants power. Is it Bakili Muluzi? Is it Atupele Muluzi? Or is it the same tenacious Bakili Muluzi through Atupele Muluzi?
I am asking these questions because I have serious doubts if Atupele who others at one point were doubting if he really holds a degree in law and has never worked elsewhere or run his own business except being embedded in his father’s businesses has the experience of solving the complex challenges facing the country.
I tend to agree with one commentator who observed that “presidency requires unbridled wisdom, intelligence, stature necessary for one to be a statesman and make decisions for over 14 million subjects and generations to come. “Atupele is only a lawyer and parliamentarian who walked from Saint Andrews to England and into parliament representing an ostensibly rural under developed Machinga North East constituency. He holds little attributes for the presidency besides his age.”
 According to that commentator, “Atupele has never been in cabinet except for some obscure membership of some parliamentary committee. He does not hold any working experience not even at corporate level and yet he thinks he can gun for the Presidency. He has no experience and wisdom for effective political or national leadership except his parliamentary responsibilities.”
He concludes by saying: “It thus makes it absurd that a person of tender age, questionable political credentials and poor experience can harbor ambitions for the highest office in the land. It will be asinine that Malawians allow him to play with their lives simply because they detaste the incumbent.”

The question is: Why is Atupele popular among some UDF supporters despite his inexperience and age? 

The answer is simple. UDF has some members who through strategic political positioning and others who through corruption, ethnicism and nepotism were beneficiaries of all the ‘great deals’ including contracts and handouts that were happening during Muluzi’s regime. In Chichewa, such people are called atidyenawo.  At the moment their assumption is that once Atupele bounces back into power they will resume enjoying the same trappings they were benefitting during Muluzi’s reign. The support for Atupele is for their pockets and stomachs and nothing else.

Despite parroting the axiom of agenda for change, which his dad also used, Atupele’s simply copy and paste truism seems to enjoy support because of good timing. His call for change is coming at the time when the country is embroiled in economic, political and governance crisis. The public expectation is that the major political parties will rise to the occasion and assure people that change is possible, but to their chagrin the major opposition parties are said to be busy strategising for the future.

As a matter of fact, it took the civil society leaders to mobilise the masses to press for change by holding mass protests and vigils when that would have been championed by opposition parties who are ‘governments in waiting’. It is, hence, not strange that Atupele’s copy and paste agenda for change pronounced at the time when the country is going through political, economic, diplomatic and governance turbulence has been welcomed with ululation and handclapping. In a crisis, any one who rises up to occasion and offer words of hope even if the suggested solutions are empty promises is endorsed and supported as a leader.

The point is UDF executive leaders were stuck in strategic myopia, busy planning and strategising at the time when masses wanted them to stand up and offer words of hope and alternative policies and solutions during the current political and economic crisis. They never did that and instead it was the inexperienced Atupele who did it.

In my view, it is a huge mistake for the UDF and all opposition parties to be telling their membership and the masses that they will unveil their torchbearers in 2013 or 2014, when people are anxiously waiting for alternative policies and solutions on fuel and forex crisis being offered by opposition leaders now.

People want a strong voice that becomes the face, the soul and the spirit of the UDF. If the UDF NEC assumes that such a move is tantamount to recreation of Big Man syndrome in the party, it should not be surprised if Atupele, despite being a conduit of Muluzi’s dynasty coupled with his lack of experience, continues to gain popularity. 

At the time when Muluzi want a comeback through Atupele or worse still create Muluzi dynasty, the UDF should abandon its plan to strategise for three years and hold a convention the soonest to identify new leaders, or else watch Atupele’s campaign spreading like wildfire while they are stuck to their strategy. Some call it strategic myopia, thus sticking to fixed strategies while losing lots of opportunities being seized by entrepreneurs and market oriented entities.

Mr Malawian President! Ignore dangerous advice

THE TWISTER

I still believe President Bingu wa Mutharika is a good leader capable of turning around the economy of the country and start re-writing new chapter on issues of human rights and governance; it seems the problem lies with his stooges who take pleasure in feeding him with noxious advice.

The recent negative publicity that has embroiled the presidency is due to nothing but venomous and half-baked admonitions from his stooges.

Let’s put this issue in context by illustrating it with a number of scenarios. Like every human being, the president gets angry over some issues; and the presidency being the highest office in the land when the office holder is bursting with emotions, you expect the advisors to intervene by moderating and cooling down his fury.

But if you ask me what do the stooges masquerading as advisors and strategists do? Instead of calming down the angry president so that a rational decision is arrived at and the president continues to enjoy huge respect he commands, the minions join the president in his anger, fuel it and pose as if they are angrier than the president himself. In their faked rage, they craft a vicious and treacherous decision which when executed would enrage the citizenry and in the process the president loses his popularity and respect.

I am writing this from experience having dealt with the presidency directly and indirectly. Last week for instance, I was reliably informed that the president was extremely angry with me over our coverage of the university graduation where this publication highlighted the murmuring that students made when the president was commenting on the issue of academic freedom.

During my conversation with one of the president’s aides I was also told that another story that pissed of the Ngwazi was the non-appearance of a barge at Nsanje Inland Port.

When the president gets angry over negative coverage of events, I feel for him because as a human being he is not immune to getting annoyed. In good political set-ups when the president gets emotional his handlers have an obligation to use anger management strategies to cool down him.

But what happens when the president is angry with a newspaper article and he is sharing his frustration with his advisors.

I assume this is how some of them react: “Bwana, this newspaper is ungrateful and it fails to appreciate your achievements, we will use every trick in the book by forcing government agencies, the police and even our legal minds to close their company,” one advisor would say.

Another would immediately jump up and say: “I think we immediately need to stop advertising in that publication. The paper has an arrogant editor called Twister. We need to teach them a bitter lesson.”

Another one would mull over it and declare: “Despite our intention are politically motivated, we can strategise and manoeuvre and use filthy trick like pressuring on their tax liabilities.

This is the pathetic state of political affairs in our land where advisors would sit and plot evil instead of giving sound advice.

In the event that the president’s image is in negative limelight in the media, what would have happened if the president had good advisors?

The minister of information and the presidential press officer and spokesperson would court the publishers and editors over lunch and discuss their concerns. This is the tactic that a number of leaders including US president Barack Obama uses time and again.

 Obama hosts luncheons with journos at White House and some of the previous  attendees included journalists from CNN, Washington Post, Newsweek and other media houses. Some of the luncheons were actually off-record.

Can the president get the same advice from his advisors who get angrier than him on his behalf. The answer is: “I doubt!” Instead of advising the president to meet publishers and editors, their insistence will be to ban advertisements or close down media houses.

Strangely the advisors deep down their hearts clearly know the backlash and the negative publicity that the president would suffer if his administration can make a mistake of closing a media house at the time we have assured the International Monetary Fund and other donors of our commitments to adhere to human rights issues including respect for press freedom.

I have a second scenario of how advisors mislead and create negative publicity for the president. Here we go. Government on October 14 issued a statement which read: “The government of the Republic of Malawi hereby revokes, reverses and withdraws any expulsion or deportation order that was, earlier this year, unfortunately made or issued against or in respect of His Excellency Mr Fergus Cochrane Dyet, the British High Commissioner to Malawi.

The statement added: “Accordingly, His Excellency Cochrane-Dyet is at liberty to enter Malawi at anytime on the instructions of Her Majesty’s Government or otherwise.”

As far as I am concerned this is one of the best statements on diplomacy and international cooperation, government has issued this year. The statement is clear and self-explanatory and it actually compliments the good foundation that Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mutharika and his delegation were laying in the United Kingdom during their meeting with William Hague and his company. 

Can you guess what one of the advisors did to spoil the well-calculated diplomatic game plan?

He rushed to the media and started making noise that Malawi has not apologized to Britain and Zambia. Surely after that powerful statement written in black and white; and after dispatching the Peter Mutharika delegation to London, did we need noisemakers to comment on the same issue?

Government tact demanded that the noisemakers should for a moment be silent and let the people interpret the government’s diplomatic statement the way they want. Pronto! But lo, the noisemakers were all over the media sending completely opposite signals, mocking the good spirits of government’s statements.

Let me conclude by imploring the president and his young brother to ignore venomous advice from some of his sympathizers including those of my cousins who come from what has been nicknamed as political PMCT zone, thus Phalombe, Mulanje, Chiradzulu and Thyolo zone. Not every piece of advice from PMCT Zone is useful.

I know how some of my uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces and sisters from PMCT zone think politically they can bring chaos in the name of political patronage.

Long live democracy, long live press freedom.

Malawi needs solutions

Few weeks ago when President Bingu wa Mutharika’s hired the ‘lean’ cabinet following the dissolution of the previous bloated cabinet, we lauded him for demonstrating his strong desire to address the concerns raised by the masses through a petition which the civil society presented to government.

Besides trimming his cabinet, government’s attempts to normalize fuel supplies, the appointment of a Presidential Committee on Contact and Dialogue to negotiate with the civil society were some of the steps that formed the basis of our commendation. Like many citizens, we expected that the new cabinet would start addressing issues raised by the masses through the petition that the civil society submitted to government.

The citizenry, according to the petition, would like to see the repulsion of the infamous Section 46 of the Penal Code which empowers a cabinet minister to ban newspapers. They would also like government to stop draining tax-payers money through payments made to the First Lady as her remuneration for her charity. The other demand is that the Civil Procedures Bill popularly known as Injunction Bill, which is meant to prohibit the court from granting ex-parte injunctions against government should also be quashed. The heart of the matter is that President Bingu wa Mutharika and his administration still have a long list of concerns to address if their commitment to good governance and respect for the rule of law is to be appreciated by the masses.

Malawians had high hopes on the new cabinet ministers who we thought would at all cost refrain from misleading the president with shoddy advice on how he addresses people’s concerns. It seems were mistaken because some of the cabinet ministers are nothing but political liabilities who think that their duties revolves around churning out empty refutations and lies on trivia. It seems there is a crop of cabinet ministers who think that their job description is to be organizing press conferences on daily basis in the name of defending government through hollow refutations oftentimes bordering on castigating the opposition and the civil society.

Malawians do not want good-for-nothing ministers who waste their time ranting and raving instead of addressing the concerns that affect the majority of the people. If the ministers believe that they are endowed with great wisdom, then they should end the Chancellor College impasse which has seen students failing to attend classes for seven months now. Let them display their wisdom by ending the fuel and forex crises that are dogging the country, instead of boring people with senseless refutations and lies which even a kindergarten pupil can’t believe.

Let cabinet ministers tackle real issues that make a difference in the lives of Malawians instead of ranting and raving in the name of refutations on daily basis.

Malawi's lessons from Zambia: The fall of the president

TWISTER

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

I am still following political events that are unfolding in Zambia with The Post Newspaper being my favourite source of information. As I penned this entry yesterday, I had just finished perusing a story on how Patriotic Front youths in Chipata had carried out a citizens’ arrest on fugitive Lusaka Province MMD chairperson William Banda and handed him over to the police.

Banda, who was with his family, was picked from a lodge and was found with three firearms, two pistols and a Greener shotgun.

The embattled Lusaka provincial governor was notoriously known in the entire Zambia for openly smoking out opposition figures, civil society officials and members of the media. His arrest has been described as a very good lesson to the entire country. It is lesson that when you are in the ruling party, you should not intimidate people because the things that you do will one day come back to you.

William Banda is not the only one who is now a victim of his political idiocy as his boss, Rupiah Banda, the trounced president is also swallowing bitter gall of foolhardiness. To appreciate this, Mike Mulongoti who at one point was Rupiah Banda’s spokesperson and later served as cabinet minister has a good explanation. According to Mulongoti, Rupiah goofed fulltime by surrounding himself with opportunists.

Mulongoti said it was unfortunate that Rupiah could not see through the lies of those who surrounded him and fooled him by assuring him that all was okay.

"This is what happens when you choose to ignore divergent views and choose what to hear only what you want to hear. Vultures and opportunists that surrounded Banda began to see through him and say things that he wanted to hear," Mulongoti was quoted by the paper as saying.

He has since branded Sata's election as timely, arguing greed and lack of respect for divergent views and advice led to former president’s downfall.

According to the former journalist turned politician, “Banda became intolerant, selfish and greedy in his rule. Banda also became disrespectful to colleagues who supported him into office. He even denied that those of us who were close to him had helped and that was part of the backlash.”

He added: "Banda and his colleagues became immune to advice. They became arrogant because of the power of incumbency and treated public resources like they were family resources. Those that advised them were perceived to be enemies of the state, such that even their friends in government were threatened that they would be dealt with through interaction with them."

Mulongoti’s remarks reminds me of what Sydney Finkelstein, a professor of management at the Tuck School of Business  once observed about the pattern that dictators take when they are falling.

“The pattern repeats itself throughout history. The dictator eventually oversteps his bounds one time too many and the people revolt. Where once they cowered in fear, now they step up and declare, ‘enough is enough.’ The dictator must go.”

The professor adds: “And the dictator decides he better make some concessions to keep his ultimate power in place. Some demands of protestors are met, but the protests become more intense. Rather than pacify the people, the concessions embolden them. The dictator is uncertain, for the first time in a very long time, on what to do. One minute he is defiant, the next he is back to making concessions. He fires his cabinet, backs down from some of his more odious policies, but the protests mount.”

After those antics: “The dictator falls. And no one can remember how it was that the dictator could hold sway for so long. The fall was that abrupt.”

I am not sure who is the next dictator to fall but there are reports that in this continent there is a nation where the masses through various protests are chanting “Enough is enough. The dictator must go.”

Like all others dictators, the despot in that nation becomes defiant and threatens to smoke out his critics; but when he is confronted, he quickly makes concessions and calls for reconciliation only to become arrogant and defiant again after taking few tots of whiskey.

I am not sure whether the dictator’s party will survive in the country’s next polls, but the Zambia experience shows that even parties of the incumbents can be booted out of power.

Atupele: Malawi’s Obama?

A fortnight ago, I wrote on how dictators love to create dynasties in both autocracies and democracies. I cited the example of how Egyptian ousted leader Hosni Mubarak had a political blueprint in which he planned to handover power to his son Gamal, while Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi wanted to be succeeded by his son Saif.

I observed: “Even here in Malawi, the trends are the same. If you think I am lying, let someone challenge me, apart from being Muluzi’s son, what qualification, experience, track-record, political stamina does Atupele have to be harbouring presidential ambitions? What has he done as an individual that is worth pointing at that makes him qualify to be the next president? If he was just a mere MP, and not Muluzi’s son, could he be making noise about presidency?”

“The same questions go to Peter Mutharika. If he were not Bingu’s kid brother, would he be a politician harbouring presidential ambitions? I am not against Atupele and Peter’s ambitions, but sometimes we need to put trends and issues in their correct context. My assumption is that these two have found themselves on the presidential campaign trails because of their father and brother respectively just as Gamal and Saif are in hot soup because of their fathers.”

My arguments irritated my close friend who sent me an e-mail trashing my observation. He argued that Atupele Muluzi might end up being Malawi’s Barack Obama. Part of his email read: “Atupele Muluzi just like Duncan Phoya is a politician to watch. The so-called veteran politicians have nothing to offer apart from gossiping, engagement in mudslinging, making smoke-out threats and political greed.”

He added: “In my view if the old guards in UDF can just throw their weight behind Atupele and forge an alliance with another party, the UDF can bounce back into power. Atupele’s campaign strategies outsmart those of his father, those of old UDF guards and those of other parties. No mudslinging, no political violence, no arrogance just his vision and how he will achieve it.”

My response to my colleague was simple. “You are entitled to your opinion, just as I am entitled to mine.” 

Malawi: Of dictators and change management

THE TWISTER

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

I am among those who dispute some of the propositions by the originator of the concept of natural selection, Charles Darwin. However, I love one of the statements he made on issues of managing change. Darwin once hinted:“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change.”

I support this view because the world is changing and we need to keep on changing. Surely, The Twister of 1990, is not the Twister of 2000 and neither is he the Twister of 2011. So many things have changed including my lifestyle. While in the past I took pleasure in writing about my own romantic episodes including the one which saw my beautiful wife pacifying two high school girls who were fighting each other near my house, not knowing that the two lasses were actually fighting for me, I no longer take pleasure in recounting those incidents. I find them inappropriate episodes because I do not want my daughter who is at the university and my son who is in high school to be reading about my youth-hood scandals. 

Since as human beings, we are changing and everything else in our environment is changing, Darwin was spot on when he said that it is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones that are most responsive to change.

Issues of change are very crucial amongst leaders because most of the time they spend their time managing change which involve managing people, systems, resources and interests for the greater good of the organization or even the nation as they forge ahead amidst various challenges and threats.

The paradox of life is that while everything else changes, people simply like others and systems to change while they remain the same. Just imagine recently, MCP president John Tembo was all over the place condemning President Bingu wa Mutharika, labelling him a dictator for expelling Vice President Joyce Banda from DPP and excluding her from his cabinet. People were clapping hands for Tembo’s boldness to denounce Bingu’s alleged dictatorial tendencies. The veteran politician urged Mutharika to adhere to tenets of democracy.

Then, just few days later, the same Tembo who was labelling Mutharika a dictator, faced with the similar situation, did the same thing. His party expelled its Secretary General Chris Daza because of his (Daza’s) mere statement that he will gun for MCP presidency in the run up to 2014 polls. Going by their despotic track-records, I am not sure who deserves to be crowned the worst dictator between Bingu and Tembo and who should label each other dictator.

The point I am illustrating is that we are excited to press for change when that change affects others, while as individuals, we resist change. There is bad news for dictators who resist change. The bad news is from Iran's Ambassador to Oman Hossein Noushabadi who says the 21st century will witness the fall of dictators all over the world.

 “The second decade of the 21st century is to witness the end of the lives of the world's dictators,” Noushabadi was quoted by the media at the weekend

The diplomat told the international media that the fall of the dominos began with the ouster of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and continued with the removal of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's ousted dictator. The Iranian envoy explained that this movement will continue with Ali Abdullah Saleh's escape from Yemen.

Unfortunately, when dictators are intoxicated with power and wallowing with in wealth whose sources they can’t explain, their ears become deaf and eyes turn blind. Nobody can preach to them about the need to embrace political change.

In management and leadership studies, there are numerous theories explaining why people oppose change. Simply put, people are creatures of habit, who naturally incline to fit themselves into a set routine. This perhaps explains why most dictators if they had their way would have loved to die while in power; or alternatively hand over the mantle of power to their wives, brothers and cousins while on their death bed.

It is claimed Egyptian ousted leader Hosni Mubarak had a political blueprint  in which he planned to handover power to his son Gamal while Muammar Gaddafi wanted to be succeeded by his son Saif. Even here in Malawi, the trends are the same. If you think I am lying, let someone challenge me, apart from being Muluzi’s son, what qualification, experience, track-record, political stamina does Atupele have to be harbouring presidential ambitions? What has he done as individual that is worth pointing at that makes him qualify to be the next president? If he was just a mere MP, and not Muluzi’s son, could he be making noise about presidency? The same questions go to Peter Mutharika. If he were not Bingu’s kid brother, would he be a politician harbouring presidential ambitions?

I am not against Atupele and Peter’s ambitions, but sometimes we need to put trends and issues in their correct context. My assumption is that these two have found themselves on the presidential campaign trails because of their father and brother respectively just as Gamal and Saif are in hot soup because of their fathers.

Today, Gaddafi, Mubarak, Ben Ali, Laurent Gbagbo are out of power facing the music because of their failure to manage and accept change as dictated by the democratic wishes of their people. Their bothers and children are also in huge messes because of their entry into politics through the window of bloody kinship instead of using the open door of democracy, choice and fair competition. 

Unfortunately, dictators, never learn the mistakes of their peers. When one dictator with his relations is being ousted by angry citizens through mass protests, another dictator in his myopia assumes that his military and police can prevent regime change. I assume those assumptions emanate from a mental disease called malignant narcissism. This chronic ailment offers dictators false hopes of survival from the strong winds of change. Gaddafi, Mubarak, Ben Ali, Gbagbo are all being haunted because of malignant narcissism, which prevented them from accepting change.

I am just asking myself as to where would the wind of change blow to after dislodging dictators in the Arab world.

Malawi:Of people power and cabinet

THE TWISTER

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

Sometimes, I tend to concur with what Sir Winston Churchill, a former British statesman once said: “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

This famous quote highlights that there is actually no such thing as a perfect form of government. Other systems such as socialism, autocracies, monarchies and theocracies are unpopular in many countries because they produce less desirable results than democracy in terms of the promotion of good governance, transparency and accountability.

However, by looking at the way some leaders conduct themselves in democracies I agree with Churchill’s assertion that democracy is also bad, only that it is the least flawed of the bunch. The recent protests and the death of 19 people during anti-government protests certainly show that Malawi democracy is failing the citizenry. It seems we actually vote for our own self-destruction by electing professional liars, stubborn and self-seeking politicians to rule and represent us.

We elect politicians who when they are intoxicated with power waste their energies and time enacting stupid laws just to please their political masters instead of pleasing the people who put them into office. Our problem is that instead of voting for patriotic politicians who have long-term vision for our nation, we vote for those that offer the best handouts and those who promise a long list of lies.

Because of democracy’s emphasis on the majority’s principle, some political hotheads forget that good governance calls for compromise, accommodation, and recognition of differences, which will always be there so long as diversities of mankind exist.

Let me now hail President Bingu wa Mutharika for trimming his cabinet as demanded by the masses who took it to the streets on July 20. The ‘lean’ cabinet shows that the loud voice of the July 20 protestors has been heard.

As I indicated on this column some months ago, it seems Mutharika is a political twister. The justification for describing him so lies in the way he reinforces his grip on power through a strategy of coercion. I am talking about the way he hires and retires members of his cabinet oftentimes, by defying people’s expectations.

The rumour mill has it that when he ascended to the throne in 2004, he discarded a cabinet which his predecessor, Atcheya proposed. He hired a cabinet of his own. Even after being re-elected in 2009, he surprised everyone else by leaving out of cabinet politicians who campaigned for him, by hiring new political comers.

During this week’s cabinet reshuffle, he has dropped some key ministers which were his staunch loyalists. We all know how one Ken Kandodo defended the zero-deficit budget with all his valour while Grain Malunga absorbed all the criticisms on fuel shortages. Anna Kachikho defended the government when local polls were being postponed while Etta Banda was justifying why it was necessary to expel the British High Commissioner to Malawi. What’s the prize for their gallant work during various crises? Exclusion from cabinet!

We have our own opinions on the new cabinet. Some are asking themselves: “Why is Kandodo out of the cabinet? Why has Bingu dropped Malunga, Mayi Kachikho, Etta Banda and Eunice Kazembe? Why?

Regardless of whatever answer you speculate, these politicians are out of cabinet. Simply put, the president has a prerogative to hire and fire.

Bingu’s strategy reminds me of Filipo Maria, the last of the Visconti dukes of Milan in the fifteenth-century Italy. History has it that he deliberately did the opposite of what everyone expected of him.

Filipo during his reign could call a servant and shower him with praises, and the servant would immediately start building castles in the air believing that his promotion was imminent, but lo, few days after showering him with praises, Filipo would then start treating him with extreme scorn.

Fearing the worst, the servant would start fearing to meet Filipo, but to the surprise of everyone the duke would start treating him well again. After weeks of treating him well as a valuable servant, he would just out of the blue rebuke him and kick him out of the castle.

The lesson was that best way to handle Filipo was to avoid assuming that you know what he wants or trying to deduce what will please him. What one had to do to survive was just to dance to his tunes of unpredictability.

A third century BC Chinese philosopher Han Fei Tzu once intimated on unpredictability: “The enlightened ruler is so mysterious that he seems to dwell no where, so inexplicable that no one can seek him. He reposes in non-action above and his ministers tremble down.” The point is unpredictability is one of the successful strategies in politics, if not used excessively and abusively.

One strategist once observed: “Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behaviour that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off balance and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves.”

I think Mutharika’s cabinet reshuffles can best be described as the being based on the use of coercive power.

“Of all bases of power available to man, the power to hurt others is often most often used, most often condemned and most difficult to control…the state relies on its military to intimidate nations, or even its own citizens. Business rely upon the control of economic resources….while the church threatens individuals with loss of grace,” that’s D. Kipnis speaking in his book Powerholders on coercive power.

So just as the church threatens its followers with loss of grace, the president uses his “prerogative to hire and fire” to decide who is supposed to be in the cabinet.

It is therefore a waste of time trying to figure out why some key figures have been dropped from cabinet because there will be so many political hypothesis generated, but the Constitution simply says that the hiring and firing of cabinet ministers is the president prerogative, and hence nobody should assume that he or she is a life-minister.

Ex-ministers who are angry and unhappy over their dismissals from cabinet, should just take solace in the words of wisdom from Baltsar Gracian (1601-1658): “Do not commit yourself to anybody or anything, for that is to be a slave, a slave to every man. Independence is more precious than the gift in exchange for which independence is lost. You should prefer many people to depend upon you, rather than that you should depend upon single person. Above all, keep yourself free of commitments and obligations – they are the device of another to get you into his power.”

Onus to respect human rights rests with Malawi government

THE TWISTER BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

The writing is on the wall. Malawians are discontented with the current administration and its failure to address pertinent issues raised in their July 20 petition. That the people's efforts to hold a peaceful vigil are also being frustrated will only make matters worse.

The poor turnout at the president's whistle-stop tours in various townships punctuated by some ruling party officials being booed at, jeered at are all tale-tell signs that many people are getting fed up with an administration that has lost direction and respect for the people who voted them in power.

The people's demands are straight forward. Malawians will not allow any leader in the current political dispensation to throw away their Constitutional rights. It does not matter that those in power are capable of commandeering the trigger-happy police officers to gun down unarmed protestors in the streets as it happened during the July 20 protests.

The Malawi Human Rights Commission findings have just confirmed what most Malawians already knew that many who died on July 20 died from gun shots. Of the 19 who died, 15 of them died from gun wounds. Everyone knows who was carrying guns on that fateful day – our own police.

Now as people are planning to hold peaceful demonstrations on August 17, the authorities are back at it issuing threats. In his whistle-stop tours, president Mutharika had no kind words for the organizers of the demonstrations. It is quite evident that, Mutharika and his advisors have lost touch with reality. Whether this is because the president is getting bad advice or that he is ignoring good advice, only he knows.

Perhaps, it's time for Mutharika to do some serious soul-searching by asking himself why is it that all of a sudden the peace-loving Malawians who voted for him en masse are suddenly turning their backs on him. Maybe before getting into the streets and making his outbursts during his road shows, he needs to find out how and where he lost the people's confidence.

Why are people just ignoring all the threats and pleas he is making? Mutharika should be asking himself why Malawians are insisting that come what may they are ready to protest their discontent in the streets, when all along they have been regarded as a docile people.

To try and shut the people up or to use the state machinery to intimidate them will only make matters worse. It is primitive politics to think that people can be threatened into submission while their human rights are being trampled upon. In a democracy, leaders only have their legitimacy to rule in as long as they also respect the rule of law and uphold good governance.

If government can just listen and address the concerns of the people, nobody would talk of protesting or holding a vigil. Intead of cherry picking what demands they will respond to, why is government not listening to the petitioners demands and addressing them appropriately, rather than waste time with empty outbursts and threats.

We wonder why it is so difficult for government to just scrap off bad laws like Section 46 of the Penal Code and the Injunction Law. Instead they are busy trying to justify laws that are clearly designed to put Malawians under the yoke of repression.

Those in power need to realize that no amount of belligerence, arrogance, threats and insults will intimidate Malawians from reclaiming good governance which is already theirs by law.

As Malawians wish to be expressing their Constitutional right of peaceful assembly, association and expression, the onus is on the government to ensure that democracy as a system of government works and human rights and the respect of human dignity and freedom is respected. Any attempt by those in power or their agents to prevent the citizenry from expressing their rights as enshrined in the Constitution will only ferment further discontent and fuel more protests and vigils.

Malawi: Economics of a drunk

THE TWISTER

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

Once upon a time, The Twister loved to enjoy his favourite beer so much; perhaps much better that one notorious dictator who one day took pleasure of drinking beer with street vendors in a stadium when a stone-throw away, people were mourning the deaths of freedom fighters.

In those olden days, The Twister would spend K50,000 on expensive beer in an up-market bar at  night and start regretting the following morning. His groaning over his impecuniousness never helped him in any way. It was economics of a drunk. In economics of a drunk, a dipsomaniac becomes wiser when he is totally broke after spending all his monies on alcohol - not with street vendors in a stadium-  but rather with pretty damsels  in an exclusive bar.

While The Twister dropped the habit years ago, it seems some policy makers practise economics of a drunk to the fullest. This week’s devaluation of the kwacha is more or less the application of economics of a drunk.

 Let me twist the mater in this way. While President Bingu wa Mutharika’s economic policies previously were swinging from the foundations of Keynesian principles on one end to those of monetarist philosophies on the other end, his intractable obsession for one or two assumptions of monetarist theory has attracted lots of criticisms with other economist failing to predict where he is leading this country to in terms of economic destination.

His previous resilient stand on the value of the Kwacha that it should not be devalued despite frantic admonition from different economists and the International Monetary Fund portrayed him as a cunning student of monetarist theory who incontestably believe that monetary policy should be firmly manipulated as the best way of shaping the economy because money supply affects macroeconomic outcomes such as Gross Domestic Product growth, inflation, unemployment, and exchange rates.

While in free market economies, central banks are charged with the duty of being the hub of monetary policy, here at home Mutharika never resisted insisting on his monetarist views in form of executive orders. His stand on the value of the Kwacha was a good case in point.

Mutharika stand has always been: “The devaluation of the kwacha will only benefit a few individuals, and they are non-Africans who are here. They want to push this proposal because what they did was to go to the market and convert their kwacha to US dollars and kept them. Suppose we devalue to K180 per one US dollar, they will quickly offload their dollars and they will make huge sums of money. These are the ones to benefit.”

Mutharika’s view has always been in tandem with what some monetarists argue that an increase in the money supply will affect mostly prices, not output. Like Mutharika’s thinking, monetarists’ view is that increase in the money supply simply raises inflationary expectations and as a result push nominal interest rates up. Generally speaking, monetarists believe in fixed money supply targets, or in regulation of how much to change the money supply. This is slightly different from the beliefs of Keynesian economists who have faith in more flexibility or discretion instead of being tied to rigid rules and regulations.

While Keynesians would advocate for discretion and flexibility on how we value the Kwacha, Mutharika’s views are nothing but bringing the monetarist assumptions to detrimental extreme.

 The Twister believes that besides our diplomatic gaffes, human rights abuses and violation of our own Constitution, one error of judgement the current administration is making is that of implementing some assumptions of monetarist thinking without considering our context as one of the not-so-rich countries in the world. Our obsession for monetarism, which is persuading those in power to keep on emphasising the role of government in controlling the amount of money in circulation by, among others, tweaking exchange rates is certainly annoying some bilateral and multilateral partners who believe that our stand on the value of the Kwacha is wrong and therefore cannot support us financially.

Had we listened to both local economists and our bilateral donors on the issue of Kwacha value when our economy was ‘booming’ the devaluation would have a positive impact, but like a drunk who becomes financially wiser when he is penniless, the recent devaluation will have some repercussions. The issue is simple - the positive impact of devaluation usually relies on the state of the economy and hence the ill-timed devaluation will lead to inflationary pressures.

The Twister is not alone in doubting the benefits of an ill-timed devaluation. One commentator Ben Sodza shares my fears. “Devaluation of currency for an ailing economy without production capacity for all its consumer goods is bad news because country relies on imported goods to supply its consumers. This means paying in foreign currency to procure the goods. If an economy can manufacture all its consumer goods and have surplus to export, devaluation becomes a joy stick that one plays with to manipulate sales of exported goods to dominate the external market; and in such case the local people are not affected.”

Sodza quizzes: “What does this devaluation affect and what else is devalued at the same time?”  He quickly points out: “All banks saving devalue translating into loss of purchasing power.  Pensions on all retired devalue [which also translates to reduction] of buying power.”

What else is affected? Pension contributed funds devalue, lowering standards of pensions, life cover Insurances devalue and premiums go up.

Furthermore, people in the village and unemployed masses suffer because their money loses buying power and people are in turn impoverished; and Sodza further adds: “Not all employers respond with salary adjustments to match devaluation [as the result] salaries lose value.

The point is that this poorly-timed devaluation may end up being inflationary and will not add much-need benefits to the economy. It is economics of the drunk who becomes wiser when he is totally broke instead of being wiser when his is financially sound. In our case, we seem to see the benefits of devaluation when the economy is plunging into a crisis and we will not reap the benefits that well-calculated devaluations generate. Devaluing the Kwacha when our tobacco is doing so poorly at the Auction Floors, the prices of cotton are also low, IMF, Britain, Germany and many other donors have closed financial taps is just like economics of a drunk of becoming wiser when one is broke.

Malawi: Behind every dictator is an arrogant First Lady

THE TWISTER

By Brian Ligomeka

The arrest of former Ivory Coast autocrat Laurent Gbagbo in the subterranean vault of his residence, hunkering down with his wife was a reprehensible but pertinent finale to his fiendish attempt to hang on to power.

The disgusting image relayed to the world of an arrested Gbagbo with a soiled vest, sopping with sweat, was beyond belief. Nobody, except for his minions, had sympathy for him because it was obvious that he was reaping the fruits of his autocracy, notoriety and arrogance.

The ugly scene of Gbagbo debacle underscored the feebleness of democracy on this continent. The presence of Simone, Gbagbo’s wife in the foxhole demonstrated how an avaricious first lady helped her power-intoxicated husband in destroying Ivory Coast. The role of Gbagbo's first wife, Simone in egging on her spouse to treat with contempt voices of reason and political wisdom from all the corners of the globe is well-chronicled.

History has it that after the rebels captured part of Ivory Coast in 2002, Simone Gbagbo, then parliamentary leader of her husband’s party, incited Ivorian women to deny conjugal rights to their husbands who supported the making of peace with rebels who had taken control of half of the country. This is why fingers have been pointed at her for influencing her husband [a professor] to reject the outcome of the presidential outcome.

Just like her husband, Simone never wanted to accept the painful reality of life that time was up for her. She was still stuck in the opulence of State House life. The defeat of her husband in polss saw her world crumbling and she had serious problems in reconciling with the fact that she would no longer be the First Lady.

With Simone’s attitude, one cannot be blamed for concluding that “behind every dictator man is an arrogant woman" and if the dictator is the head of state it does not go without saying that the arrogant woman is the first lady.

If you see some old presidents making idiotic and dubious decisions aimed at just stoking their egos at the expense of their citizenry, do not be surprised. It can be the result of the pillow talk of their wives.

Though in most countries, first ladies do not don’t hold any constitutional offices, their sheer luck of being betrothed to those in power, confers them the privilege of having power thrust on them. During my good old days at St Patricks Secondary School at Mzedi in Limbe someone used to say, “Galu wa a mfumu ndi mfumu ya agalu” which can literally be translated as: “The chief’s dog is the chief of dogs.” The adage simply says that the chiefs confer some-kind of status on everything that is in their household.

That explains why it is a mistake to assume that first ladies are just mere state house flowers or bedroom firebrands for quenching sentimental thirst of presidents; because in reality through their romantic proximity their bedroom talk sometimes translates into policies. This means that if the first lady is materialistic, hot-headed and arrogant, she will succeed in creating a monstrous dictator whose citizens will be marching in the streets against him and his policies on weekly basis.

Sometime back I enjoyed reading an article in one of my favourite magazines,The Economist,  which wrote that first ladies, especially those on this continent, brandish monstrous “bottom power”.  

In Nigeria, a story is told of one Stella Obasanjo who in May 2005, ordered a police raid at the Midwest Herald, a Lagos-based newspaper which had published a story headlined ‘Greedy Stella,’ linking her to the questionable sale of government houses to her relatives.

When the Nigerian police were quizzed on the raid, they admitted to have acted on orders from above. The “powerful above office” was that of First Lady Stella.

Stella was in the limelight for her patronising behaviour which saw her at one point banning wives of state governors from addressing themselves as ‘Her Excellency’.

And in the same nation of Nigeria one cannot forget what happened after President Sani Abacha’s death. His widow Mariam was arrested in scandalous circumstances, as she fled with suitcases stuffed with US dollars.

With such scandals, The Twister does not blame a Kenyan journalist Emeka Mayaka for branding some African first ladies as “opportunists who have used their positions to amass wealth for themselves through questionable charitable organisations.”

How I wish the Kenyan journalist knew that some first ladies are so greedy that they even accept to be receiving monthly salaries including housing allowances for charity work. Oh my foot! Why receive a housing allowance when you already reside in State House?

While in Malawi, our women who have been serving at the State House Mama Cecelia Kadzamira, Anne Muluzi, Shanil Muluzi and late Ethel Mutharika never dared to poke their noses into politics, it seems we have our own Queen Dzeliwe Shongwe, ‘the Great She Elephant [of Swaziland.’ For starters, Queen Dzeliwe Shongwe was a senior wife of King Sobhuza II of Swaziland. She was one of the greatest beneficiary of propinquity to a powerful husband.

With nice, sweet pillow talk, the Queen Shongwe asked her husband to name her a joint Head of State in 1981 and King Sobhuza II did just that, but later revoked it.

With Bingu wa Mutharika declaring: “I will smoke out my critics,” and his wife Callista mumbling: “Let the civil society go to hell. Villagers don’t need fuel and forex”, The Twister keeps on asking himself how can someone in their right frame of mind lie that people in the villages do not need fuel. Is it ignorance, arrogance and sheer political blindness or opulence intoxication? Who in this country does know the ‘fuel’ needs of the villagers? If there is one, he or she must be coming from another planet.

The Twister takes in the solace in the fact that 2014 will be the judgement year and assumes that rigging through pre-ballot stuffing, result altering through tabulation and diversion of telecommunications lines will not be possible.

The article first appeared in The Daily Times of Malawi

Of Malawi leader's public lecture, arrogance and empty gimmicks

THE TWISTER

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

The political pot is boiling. The civil society organisations are planning to hold demonstrations to protest against poor governance and economic woes dogging the country. Poor economic management, the obvious putrid fruits of decayed fiscal and monetary policies are manifesting themselves through fuel shortages, forex scarcity, high unemployment and poverty.

The once over-hyped moniker of our leader as an economic engineer, which we were persuaded to accept as true during yesteryears has turned to be a political falsehood.

I was on a fuel queue with my son this other day and he turned to me and asked: “I thought people were alleging that Atcheya was uneducated and his handling of economic issues was shambolic, why is it that during his ten-year reign, Malawi never experienced fuel and forex shortages as is the case now when our country is being led by a professor and an economics PhD holder?”

Honestly speaking I had no answer. All I did was to hit back at him with suggestions: “Go and ask your lecturer if education can remove political arrogance, myopia and egocentrism. Find out from your lecturer what happens when you are very advanced in age in terms of your reasoning capacity and your attitude towards others. Ask your lecturer about the age at which one starts showing signs of being senile?” Then you will have an answer.

If you don’t find an answer from your lecturers, then read an investigative audit and management report of the special committee of eminent persons on the operations of Comesa part of which declares:

 “The relations between Comesa and its institutions, and Member States are restrained because of the demeanour and arrogance of the Secretary General. He has created more misunderstanding and hatred in the institution and member States than he has made friends.”

The report laments in part that its Secretary General did not fully utilise his directors for decision making as a team as he was fond of summoning them either “to lecture to them, rebuke or impose his will on them”.

 “The net effect has been to reduce his directors to implementers of his directives which by and large breach the existing legal instruments. Indeed, he uses them to rubber-stamp his decisions,” reads the Comesa report in part that ended in that Secretary General being fired.

I told my son that if he reads that Comesa Report he would understand why Malawi is embroiled in political and economic quagmire; and why this country is at risk of degenerating into a dynasty.

I made those suggestions to my son because I did not want to tell him that while high education makes some become better citizens, the same high education turn others into crazy, arrogant, egoistic and nepotistic individuals.

The point is that Atcheya had his own basketfuls of political and economic goofs including the third term psychosis, but the performance of the current regime leaves a lot to be desired. Malawians are now bearing the brunt of the dictatorial, disastrous and tactless leadership whose consequences are the fuel queues, enactment of idiotic laws, the freezing of donor aid and many other idiosyncratic gaffes. Just imagine at the peak of the current diplomatic gaffes, fuel and forex shortages, someone believes that the best solution he can offer to Malawians is to stage a public lecture which has already been snubbed by the opposition and the civil society as cataclysmic and contemptible.

The current crises do not need political gimmicks in form of public lectures, neither do they need public lies as answers. They need real solutions and not empty talk and arrogant excuses sandwiched with distorted Pan Africanism philosophy and political sovereignty postulations that ignore the fundamental benefits and costs of globalisation and good governance.