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