Unpopular but victorious!

THE TWISTER

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

Senegal is planning to hold a second round of presidential elections after the divided opposition failed to kick out incumbent leader Abdoulaye Wade. As a matter of fact it was Wade who was leading with 34.8 percent of the vote.  The main runner up was his former prime minister, Macky Sall, who came second with 26.5 percent. The other dozen opposition leaders split the rest of the votes.

Wade, who has been in power since 2000 and is seeking actually seeking a controversial third term and if the other opposition leaders will not rally behind Sall, the Senegalese leader will bounce back in power and will take advantage of the situation to groom his son, Karim, to succeed him.

Is what is happening in Senegal strange? Not all. Greed and egocentrism is what keep opposition leaders outside power for a long time. If all the opposition leaders had swallowed their pride and selfishness, Sall would have been sworn in as president by now. But because of political egoism and insatiability, Wade might end up ruling them for a third term, and his son will also rule them for three terms. Pure dynasty!

I recently wrote how the divided opposition will lose the 2014 elections? I had phones from my future presidents, all of them pledging that the opposition in Malawi will work together because they have a common enemy. Let me not commit treason by stating here that their common enemy is not a ruling party politician but the twin problem of poor governance and economic crisis.

 Deep-down my heart, I entirely agreed with their view that it is easy to change the regime in 2014 if the opposition leaders unite, but none of them told me that they are ready to support their colleague as a presidential candidate.

As I stated few weeks ago, it is extremely difficult to talk of tangible political alliances in Malawi because it is difficult for Joyce Banda, Atupele Muluzi, John Tembo and Friday Jumbe to accept that they should not be presidential candidates and instead they should support their alliance leader.

I still maintain that most of them are fooled by the undecided voters who wear their party colours at their rallies. Two party presidents challenged me that in their parties, they know their genuine supporters. I could not buy their arguments considering that the parliamentary candidates of both parties lost in Rumphi by elections. If they knew exactly their members they would not have dared to go into a by-election, they knew they would lose.

So the tale of women in my home village who shocked me when they said they have political colours of most parties in the country, which means every party counts them as their members; still hold water. In still believe such political chameleons fool politicians on their party membership and popularity.

In Senegal, there were about a dozen opposition presidential candidates and the incumbent trounced them all. Even for the most popular opposition leader, failed to beat the ruling party’s political machinations to ascend into power in the first round of the poll. The advantage of the incumbency, which is manifested in the control of most state resources and even setting up an apparatus for rigging the elections, worked against the opposition in Senegal. Luckily enough, their Constitution states that the winning president should amass at least 50 percent of the votes. If they did not have that provision, Wade would have been president.

What I am twisting here?

The ambition of those in the opposition is to get into power, unfortunately while most of them can sing about their goal day and night, none of them can tell you five smart strategies they have put in place to achieve their goal. All of them will tell you some cheap strategies such as “the rallies we are addressing are being patronised by many people. That is a sign that we are a popular opposition party geared to win 2014 elections.”

Despite having strategies full of mediocrity, the disorganised and divided opposition parties will cry foul when the elections are won or rigged by the ruling party. This is what is happening in Senegal now. All the opposition leaders hate Wade, but they have been failing to unite to defeat him.

As far as I am concerned winning an election is more than addressing rallies in villages, townships and even at Njamba, Masintha and Katoto Freedom Parks.

The point is Malawians might be tired with the current regime because of its numerous follies manifesting themselves through forex, fuel, drug and food shortages, but they will be let down by the weak and divided opposition in 2014.

With more than ten faces of presidential candidates on the ballot paper, the opposition will split their votes and make the ruling party candidate win the elections with ease.

Imagine there are 4 million eligible voters and the majority of them, 3 million voters want regime change and the minority of them (one million) are ruling party diehards. If there is an opposition alliance, the opposition will win as 3 million voters outnumber the ruling party’s one million voters.

But imagine that Tembo, Atupele, Jumbe, and Banda assume that they are popular opposition figures and can win on their own, what happens? They will share the 3 million opposition votes amongst themselves. On average each one of them will get 750,000 votes. Though the opposition voters in total are 3 million, but in that scenario Peter Mutharika will win because with one million votes, he has beaten them all and simple majority rule demands that he is our next president. This is how opposition parties lose elections in Africa. It is because of the self-centredness and political ravenousness which infuriate their supporters who crave for change.

While most opposition leaders hate alliances if they are not chosen as presidential candidates for their coalitions, their hatred for political cooperation is what sentences them to many years in opposition. Formation of strategic political alliances is one of the strategies of boosting chances of winning an election. Even if the ruling party wants to retain power political alliance is one of the strategies they can use to get some votes from the opposition.

The take home message is that being angry and frustrated with the current regime does not translate into regime change if opposition parties have no tangible strategies. Addressing rallies and shouting slogans for change or future prosperity are not the only strategies that can propel one into power.

Hate it or not, Wade is very unpopular but emerged victorious, courtesy of the divided opposition.

Of leaders and state collapse

THE TWISTER

By Brian Ligomeka & Geoffrey Gomani

The issue of state collapse aroused a lot of interest in the 1990s so much that many political scientists have written on this subject. The literature grew most rapidly because some states were on the brink of collapsing.

Zartman, Boulder & Lynne-Rienner (1995), in Collapsed States—The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, define collapse of a state as a time when “the basic functions of the state are no longer performed as analysed in various theories of the state. While Badie and Birnbaum (1983) has defined state collapse as “...when the decision making centre of government is paralysed and inoperative: good laws are not made, order is not preserved, and societal cohesion is not enhanced”.

Commenting on the subject of state collapse, Gramsci (1967); Hegel (1952); Kean (1988) made a few observations. “Does this pervasive incapacity occur because the state itself collapses as the authoritative political institution? Or because society beneath it has become incapable of providing the support and demands it needs?

Others look at state collapse as the breakdown of good governance, law and order. The state, as a decision making, executing and enforcing institution can no longer take and implement decisions. Societal collapse, on the other hand, is extended breakdown of social coherence: society, as the generator of institutions of cohesion and maintenance, can no longer create, aggregate, and articulate the supports and demands that are foundations of the state. When the state fails to provide the basic resources or overtaxes its citizens, then state collapse is imminent.

There are many countries in Africa where presidents assume more dominant and autocratic disposition and running their countries as their private estates. Their support structures are only out to advise the president on exactly what he would like them to articulate and both the president and his advisors have lost touch with political reality on the ground. The government machinery is in complete denial hence the citizens are paying a heavy price in form of taxes on basic essential goods and cost of life that is moving away.

By deduction, it can also be said there is a form of state collapse, which is associated with a leadership that has turned into an evil or tyrannical institution, in which the necessary balance between coercive and rewarding functions is disrupted in favour of coercion.

Zartman says, “As the long debate over the state as a social contract has brought out individuals in society in creating a state trade in their freedom in exchange for security and constraints. When the state overplays its functions, it loses the willing allegiance and legitimising support of its population.

The events of the early 1990s—the collapse of the ideologised tyranny in the Soviet Union and of constitutional racism in South Africa - support the hypothesis that authoritarianism is the cause of state collapse and that tyranny in the end will destroy its own state. The cloud on this silver-lined conclusion is that society, too, pays the price of tyranny; it is the tyrant’s destruction of the institutions of civil society and any form of opposition that makes the state’s destruction a matter of collapse rather than one of simple replacement.

The state collapse is not a short term phenomenon nor is it a crisis with a few early warning signs but rather a long term degeneration disease whose outcome is inevitable. It is a process that may be likened to the movie version of a car falling slowly, in stages down a cliff—or to the progress of an object tumbling down a staircase, landing and tittering on each step it hits, then either regaining its balance and coming to rest or losing its balance again and bouncing down to the next step, where the exercise is repeated.

Leaders in government going through the process of state collapse have a tendency to view slippery slopes as merely grades on the normally bumpy terrain of politics, making it difficult to focus their attention on the gravity of the problem until it is too late and difficult to prescribe preventive measures or it is far too late to engage in any meaningful dialogue and reconciliation.

Nonetheless, the slippery slope has some notable characters near the bottom and these do serve as ultimate warnings. Five ultimate sign posts that have been identified by various authorities including Yoffee and Cowgill (1988) are:

1.      Power devolves to the peripheries when (because) the centre fights among itself. Those in central power are too busy defending themselves against attacks from their political competitors, the media, civil society and the clergy to hold on to reign of power over the country. Local authority and popular support is up for grabs.

2.       Power withers at the centre by default because central government loses its power base. It no longer pays attention to the needs of its social bases and does not heed advice. The centre instead relies on its inner most trusted circle: this may be an ethnic or regional group, or a functional group or a legal group or such groups operating in cliques unknown to leadership. Attention to the needs and demands of the smaller group diverts allocations from the broader social sources of support (the electorate).

The smaller groupings galvanise their cohesion to the leadership by systematic rumour mongering, malicious gossip against political adversaries, creating fear of the unknown on the leadership, in fighting for greater leadership attention, and get-rich-quick syndrome creeps in sharing limited resources in government.

3.      Government malfunctions by avoiding necessary but difficult choices. As a result, such measures mount in urgency and difficulty, facing the state with a governing crisis. Decisional avoidance can take place either because of institutional incoherence, in which the mechanisms of government are inadequate to their challenges, or because of political flabbiness and inexperience, in which the politicians themselves are incapable of biting the bullet. The effect is the same.

4.       The incumbents practice only defensive and scapegoat politics, fending off challenges, making threats, intimidating, manipulating and arresting political competitors, concentrating on procedural rather than substantive measures and issues. Such measures include both repression and coercion using state machinery, taken to get the opposition and the Civil Society off their back. What is seemingly absent is a political agenda for participation by all and development programmes. The leadership behaviour closes off to alternative views and limits evaluation of alternative ways of resolving problems.

Elections are postponed; platforms for public speech are absent, the media is muzzled and persecuted, civil society is destroyed, the state enters into propaganda phase, and attempts are made to interfere with the judiciary through appointment of Judges on the basis of being cronies or from the same homestead. Further attempts are made to force compliance by the Judiciary through holding back benefits as bargaining strategy.

5.      Probably the ultimate danger sign is when the centre loses control over its own state agents, who begin to operate on their own account. Officials extract payments for their own pockets, and law and order is consistently broken by the agents of law and order, the police become political gangs and brigades serving the interest of just the ruling party.

The antidote to these ultimate signs of state collapse is simply to reverse them. But it is obvious that because of their very nature, reversal is extremely difficult and hard to attain. It might almost be said that, at this point, the process needs to run its full course before a new structure of law and order or legitimate authority can be constructed. This is through a democratic legitimisation process: the ballot box.

Based on the preceding discourse and the various factors that cause a state to collapse, whither Malawi? Is Malawi in a state of collapse? One would answer yes or no depending on whether or not an in-depth analysis has been made. One would, however, encourage objectivity and hindsight knowledge to determine whether Malawi is in a state of collapse or not.  

The crux of the matter starts from a willing acceptance that Malawi is in a crisis. Like all crisis situations, the leadership and the citizenry should embark on a problem-solving approach that is both collaborative and collective. The problem-solving approach should identify the root-causes of the problems rather than addressing symptoms and simply finger-pointing.

Obviously, a leader in a state of collapse must be multi-skilled, flexible; a people-centred person with adequate charisma, with capacity to balance short-term interests with long-term ones and must be an accomplished politician endowed with a sense of resolve and determination. Certainly, a state of collapse has no room for autocrats, bloodthirsty leaders, and scholars of Tit-for-Tat Academy. 

A leopard never changes its spots

THE TWISTER

Brian Ligomeka

Today, I have decided to praise my president, Bingu wa Mutharika for bringing sanity in filling stations. I have just learnt that it was the state president who ordered that petrol attendants should not entertain zigubu mafias who were causing chaos at filling stations, and hence my commendation. Unlike in the past, motorists nowadays are no longer haunted by zigubu hoodlums. Much as the problem of fuel still persists, the orderliness at filling stations impresses me. The president deserves salutation.

As a matter of fact, I am surprised with people who criticise the state president for his alleged arrogance and obstinacy. I am not surprised with his Pan Africanism stand which others mistake for arrogance. Even his announcement in his State of Nation Address that he would like to make experiments with people’s lives in the next three years by trying to find home-grown solutions to our problems never perplexed me.

 To me what Mutharika does is no surprise because his track-record shows that Pan African, the alleged arrogance is his obession. Those who think I am just ranting should read how he was performing as a Secretary General of Comesa. I wanted to embellish the excerpt of the Comesa repor on his performance as a secretary general t with my own comments, but I have decided to reproduce it without my commentary.

The report of the special committe of eminent persons on the operations of Comesa which was presented to the Council of Minister reads in part:

Introduction

The Council of Ministers, having noted with concern the overall state of affairs of COMESA and in particular, the finances and management of the Secretariat, the poor implementation record of the decisions of policy organs by the Secretariat, and the lack of corrective action by the Secretary General despite repeated reminders by the Council; resolved at its Extraordinary Meeting held in Lusaka from 16th to 17th January, 1997 to establish a Special Committee (the Committee) of five eminent persons drawn form Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zaire, to investigate into and prepare a comprehensive investigative audit and management report for the period beginning 1992 to-date.

Terms of Reference

The Committee was given the following terms of reference: alleged financial malpractices at the Secretariat and the state of finances of the organisation;financial systems and controls at the Secretariat; the efficiency in the management and utilisation of resources at the disposal of the organisation; alleged administrative malpractices, irregularities and practices currently in place within the organisation at the Secretariat, relations between the Secretariat and other Comesa institutions as well with the Member States; ways and means of improving the implementations of the Comesa Policy organs; and generally all measures hat will enhance the stature and image of the organisation.

Composition

The Committee was composed of the following members:Emmanuel Maposa Hachipuka (Zambia) John Muhaise-Bikalemesa (Uganda) Dan Ameyo (Kenya) Jean-jacques Mambe N’gala Masseke (Zaire) Phibian Mashingaidze (Zimbabwe)

Approach

To accomplish the task we read and extensively analysed the provisions of the Treaty, the Staff and Financial Rules and Regulations and other financial and administrative documents made available to us. We interviewed and received oral and written evidence and memoranda from professional and general staff at the Secretariat. We also interviewed and received written submissions from the Chief Executives of Comesa institutions.

We further interviewed the external auditors and the bankers. On the basis of the information available from the documents, interviews and the oral evidence obtained from those interviewed, we set out in the following paragraphs our findings, and recommendations. Details and specific instances of the observations, findings and recommendations are elaborately set out in the main Report.

Findings

*        The financial position of Comesa is extremely poor due to lack of financial support from Member States through prompt payments of Members’ contributions, and failure by the Secretariat to develop an effective a follow-up strategy

*        There is ample evidence of financial malpractices. The Secretary General has used Comesa funds to finance missions which cannot be confirmed to be official and beneficial to Comesa. The Secretary General has also used Comesa resources for personal activities.

 * The PTA Financial Rules and Regulations which are currently in use are inadequate as they have not been further developed to provide the intended effective systems and controls. In addition, there are no formal systems incorporating effective controls;

*The internal audit, which was the only effective control instrument has been scrapped by the Secretary General without the knowledge of the Council; and

*The scope of work of the external auditors as evidenced in the Audit contract has been severely restricted by the Secretary General contrary to the provisions of the Treaty.

*The absence of a development strategy on which annual budgets should be based has led to inefficiency in the management and utilization of Comesa resources. As a result, funds have been utilized in non-priority areas.

* There is no formal organisation structure at the Secretariat. The absence of a well-thought-out and approved organisation structure has enabled the Secretary General to: abolish some departments and redesign others; scrap internal audit of the organisation; fill established positions with consultants; and misplace and misallocate personnel without matching ability with the task to be accomplished.

*The relationship between the Secretary General and Comesa  institutions is strained because of the Secretary General’s demeanor and management style. His desire to have a domineering role in the management of these institutions is one of the causes of the strain. The Secretary General has, as a result, failed to conclude cooperation agreements with these institutions as required by the treaty. He has used funds of some institutions contrary to laid down rules and regulations of the institution(s).

*The Secretary General has failed to develop an effective and beneficial working relationship with Member States by arrogating himself status equivalent to Heads of State and Government thereby treating Ministers and officials responsible for Comesa Affairs as inferior to him.

*There is no mechanism in place to ensure the effective implementation of the decisions of the policy organs. Since 1992, several major decisions remain unimplemented because of the Secretary General’s failure to find time to address the critical areas that need attention.

*The current accommodation facilities of the Secretariat do not match the stature of Comesa as an international organisation. This reflects on the calibre and character of the Secretary General.

The Twister rejoinder is: Are you surprised that Malawi is embroiled in economic mess with Mutharika at the helm as his head of state. Are you surprised that Malawi relationship with some of its key partners is strained? 

I am not surprised be because I am able to get a cue from the statement that reads: “The relationship between the Secretary General and Comesa institutions is strained because of the Secretary General’s demeanour and management style. His desire to have a domineering role in the management of these institutions is one of the causes of the strain. The Secretary General has, as a result, failed to conclude cooperation agreements with these institutions as required by the treaty.”

While I am not surprised by his alleged arrogance, demeanour and management style, I thank him for bringing sanity in filling stations. As we witness his home-grown economic experiments which he intends to conduct from now till he retires to his Ndata Castle in 2014, let’s have a clear picture of the leader we have. Even during his leadership at Comesa, the report clearly states: “The financial position of Comesa is extremely poor due to lack of financial support from Member States through prompt payments of Members’ contributions, and failure by the Secretariat to develop an effective a follow-up strategy.”

So African Union claps hands for aid !

THE TWISTER

Towering above the Ethiopian capital, cloaked in urban smog, the new Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is a bold symbol of China's rapidly changing role in Africa. Once seen as strictly interested in extracting raw resources and investing in infrastructure, China has interests on the continent that are increasingly shifting to investing in institutions and governments, experts say.

Construction of the 99.9 metre-tall building was wholly funded by the Chinese government at a cost of $200 million. Even the furnishings were paid for by the Asian powerhouse, and most of the construction material was imported from China. That is how one news agency wrote recently on the newly inaugurated sleek African Union Headquarters, which is Addis Ababa's tallest building.

While African leaders were clapping hands for Jia Qinglin, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference when he officially inaugurated magnificent building, some hardcore Pan Africans were appalled.

As far as the Pan Africans are concerned it does not make sense for a continental grouping like African Union whose vision is that of “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa,  driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in  global arena,” to have its headquarters designed, funded and built by the Chinese government.

The question is: Does it mean all the countries on the continent have no political and financial capacity to mobilise their resources and use African architectures, engineers and African construction companies to build the headquarters of its continental mother body?

With African Union behaving like a parasite by accepting a donation in form of its own headquarters, isn’t that defeating the whole concept of Pan-Africanism which demands that the riches of Africa be used for the benefit, upliftment, development and enjoyment of the African people?

One critics of the move is West Africa’s political commentator Chika Ezeanya who has described the development as a tragedy in the history of the African Union and Pan Africanism.

According to Ezeanya, it is an insult to the African Union and to every African that in 21^st century to have a building as symbolic as the AU headquarters designed, built and maintained by a foreign country.

In his view, this kind of donation termed ‘China’s gift to Africa’, which was constructed by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation with over 90 percent Chinese labour discredits the African Union.

Chika presents the following arguments in his criticism: “The ancient and modern history of donation of buildings and structures from one nation to another is filled with intrigues and subterfuges, conquests, diplomatic scheming, espionage and counter-espionage, economic manipulations, political statements and dominations. The construction of the Trojan horse by Odysseus and its ‘donation’ resulted in the Greek conquest of the ancient city of Troy after 10 years of unending skirmish.

In building the Basilica in Rome – termed the ‘greatest of all churches of Christendom’, contributions from the faithful were emphasized rather than donations from friendly nations. Even the gift of the Liberty Statue from France to the United States on the occasion of the latter’s independence was a joint effort, whereby over 120,000 Americans led by Joseph Pulitzer contributed funds for the construction of the pedestal in 1885.

In a rare glimpse into the matter, the book ‘Architecture of Diplomacy’, Jane C. Loeffler reveals the underlying diplomatic manoeuvrings and political ramifications that define the construction of American embassies all over the world. The author states that building an embassy requires ‘as much diplomacy as design.’ Loeffler enumerates factors seriously considered in the construction of an American embassy building and they include ‘world politics, American agendas, architectural politics, cultural considerations, security’ and several others.

Common sense dictates that in an era of increasing exploitation of Africa’s natural resources by foreign powers including China, the African Union, rather than the apparent submission signified by acceptance of the construction of its headquarters by China, should be an organisation advocating for fairness in the relationship that exists between the continent and the global powers.

Should security considerations be included, then the question arises as to how African heads of state and government could hold confidential meetings in a building they have no idea how it was wired. What guarantee do African governments have that every word uttered in the new headquarters in Addis Ababa is not heard in Beijing? What evidence negates the suspicion that all activities in the just completed building are not replayed on a large screen in Beijing as Chinese secret service agents are watching?”

I also find African Union acceptance of the donation strange. I thought this continent where we have hot-headed leaders who sing choruses of political and economic sovereignty should have the stamina to fund the headquarters of their political club. But lo, the whole continent depends on donations even to have its headquarters.

In June, African leaders will be in Malawi for their summit and guess where they will be sleeping? Presidential chalets by the Chinese and they will be holding their summit in an international conference centre built by the Chinese.

The heart of the matter is: Does it make sense for African leaders to be despising aid from the West because of the conditions attached to it while clapping hands for aid from the East because of the hidden conditions attached to it?

Is it neo-colonialism when western nations support Malawi and not neo-colonialism when east supports Malawi? When we call western partners neo-colonialists, what should we call our eastern partners? Furthermore, why should African nations fail to unite to build their own headquarters? If the whole continent can depend on aid to have new headquarters for its continental body, can sovereign Malawi do without support from cooperating partners? 

References: AFP News Report &  Chika Ezeanya viewpoint published by Pambazuka website 

Greedy politicians without strategies

THE TWISTER

I was enjoying a blend of red wine and Coke at one of the hotel bars in Blantyre at the weekend when a pair sitting next to me commenced a dialogue on the need for regime change.

“Our prayer is that these arrogant politicians should go in 2014, hence we need to encourage Malawians to vote wisely,” one of them exclaimed.

“You are right, with this crop of obstinate politicians who have no welfare of Malawians at heart, we should brace ourselves for economic hardships up to 2014 when a new leader will be elected to solve these woes,” said the other.

The debate continued with their views on the likely opposition leaders who can easily take over power.

“I wish Baba JZU Tembo will see some sense of handing over the mantle to Henry Phoya and pair him with an experienced politician like Louis Chimango,” one of them suggested.

The other responded: “I believe if UDF was not divided it could have easily made it into power. But divided as it is, it should rule itself out.”

The two went on to explain that Vice President Joyce Banda has to do a lot of soul searching if she is to win in 2014.

“The sympathy vote alone can not result in her victory, Mai Banda has to rebrand herself as a true democrat otherwise a number of people who have worked with her in the past have so many issues with her,” the other replied.

I was tempted to ask what issues have people with Joyce Banda but I kept listening while sipping my diluted red wine.

“Imagine that all opposition leaders including Joyce, Atupele, Tembo, Friday Jumbe, Mark Katsonga Phiri, Kamuzu Chibambo decided to contest, can an opposition figure win elections?” one of them asked.

The other replied: “The divided opposition will give chance to Peter Mutharika to win the elections with ease. The best the opposition leaders can do is to unite, unfortunately most of them are so greedy and power hungry that their demand would be for them to be presidential candidate and their alliance partners should gun for the position of running mate.”

Deep-down my heart, I entirely agreed with the view that it is easy to change the regime in 2014 if the opposition leaders can do away with their political egocentrism, greed and overestimating their popularity. But lo, it is extremely difficult to talk of tangible political alliances in Malawi. Can Joyce Banda, Atupele Muluzi, John Tembo and Friday Jumbe accept that they should not be presidential candidates and instead they should support their alliance leader? I have my serious doubts because each one of them fooled by the undecided voters who wear their party colours at their rallies assumes that they are the most popular opposition leaders in the country.

Some women in my home village recently shocked me when they told me that they have political colours of most parties in the country, which means every party counts them as their members. Such political chameleons fool politicians on their party membership and popularity.

Issues of political chameleons aside, I have no doubt that the ambition of every opposition party is to get into power and this also means that the wish of most leaders of opposition parties is to become state presidents of our nation.
But in a nation where there are over 40 political parties, even if the ruling party loses elections, it is not possible for all the 40 leaders of opposition parties to become heads of state. It’s only one of them who can be lucky to become a head of state.

Even for the most popular opposition leader, it is not easy to beat the ruling party’s political machinations to ascend into power. The advantage of the incumbency, which is manifested in the control of most state resources and even setting up an apparatus for rigging the elections, works against the opposition.

What I am twisting here?

The goal or general objective of those in opposition is to get into power, unfortunately while most of them can sing about their goal day and night, none of them can tell you five smart strategies they have put in place to achieve their goal or objective. All of them will tell you some cheap strategies such as “the rallies we are addressing are being patronised by many people. That is a sign that we are a popular opposition party geared to win 2014 elections.”

Despite having strategies full of mediocrity, the disorganised and divided opposition parties will cry foul when the elections are won or rigged by the ruling party.

As far as I am concerned winning an election is more than addressing rallies in villages, townships and even at Njamba, Masintha and Katoto Freedom Parks.

The point is Malawians might be tired with the current regime because of its numerous follies manifesting themselves through forex, fuel, drug and food shortages, but they will be let down by the weak and divided opposition in 2014.

With more than ten faces of presidential candidates on the ballot paper, the opposition will split their votes and make the ruling party candidate win the elections with ease.

Imagine there are 4 million eligible voters and the majority of them, 3 million voters want regime change and the minority of them (one million) are ruling party diehards. If there is an opposition alliance, the opposition will win as 3 million voters outnumber the ruling party’s one million voters.

But imagine that Tembo, Atupele , Jumbe, and Banda assume that they are popular oppsotion figures and can win on their own, what happens? They will share the 3 million opposition votes amongst themselves. On average each one of them will get 750,000 votes. Though the opposition voters in total are 3 million, but in that scenario Peter Mutharika will win because with one million votes, he has beaten them all and simple majority rule demands that he is our next president. This is how opposition parties lose elections in Africa. It is because of the self-centredness and political ravenousness which infuriate their supporters who crave for change.

The point is while most opposition leaders hate alliances if they are not chosen as presidential candidates for their coalitions, their hatred for political cooperation is what sentences them to many years in opposition. Formation of strategic political alliances is one of the strategies of boosting chances of winning an election. Even if the ruling party wants to retain power political alliance is one of the strategies they can use to get some votes from the opposition.

The take home message is that being angry and frustrated with the current regime does not translate into regime change if opposition parties have no tangible strategies. Addressing rallies and shouting slogans for change or future prosperity are not the only strategies that can propel one into power.

How opposition parties lose

How opposition parties win elections