Laws of Anarchy

The backbone of morality is cracking under the weight of legality all over today. Even this is a foolish begining of an article because it is no longer possible to agree on what is moral or not.

Yet, what is legal is easily agreed upon. We open that holy book called Constitution, locate chapter and verse. But Constitutions are born out of a people's code of morality, whatever that means.

The Credit Crunch has just revealed some of the worst evils of the Western society and its erstwhile extremes of capitalism.

One man became so rich that when his businesses began to collapse, several countries in South America and the Carribbean had their entire economies seriously threatened. Just one man holding the fate of so many souls.

The British authorities are now spending sleepless nights trying to save the sinking ship of the hitherto giant economy. You can see the anguish of the inner souls all over the face of those who are losing jobs.

The British Government has had to "borrow" public money pump billions of Pounds into the banking system where this vicious cycle of a mess began. They have to save banks from collapsing in order to save the economy.

But this has not stopped innocent members of the public who have sacrificed their tax money from losing their jobs and assets. Yes, Gordon Brown or Barack Obama are effectively borrowing this public money because the public patiently awaits on trust to be repaid by restoring market confidence and rebounding the economy.

Everyone has spoken. And we are told the commercial banks got us into this mess. Yet, the former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland is set to receive a collosal bonus of 690,000 pounds per annum for the rest of his life -- a package for an early retirement after leading the bank to historic losses.

This is public money just pumped into the bank. But the argument is simple. It is legally bound in an agreement. It does not matter that it is immoral to take such a collosal sum of meoney from the suffering public.

But the story is all over. Malawi's former president Bakili Muluzi led the country into chaos when physical, economical and social infrastructure broke down. If Muluzi was still in power today, Malawi should have been second to Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe by now. Now he has been figetting to come back to power.

The real question is not whether Muluzi can or cannot stand. The real question is whether he should stand at all because we all know what he did to the country besides the framers of the Constitution having intended to restrain power-hungry politicians from haunting thrones like the Abiku or the Ogbanje of Things Fall Apart.

These are the questions which the media and the civil society in Malawi should have been championing. But both the media and the civil easily get unconsciously manipulated into sympathy for the opposition. And so, they gloss over the real questions.

But the arguement is again simple. Is he legally allowed to stand by the Constitution or not. But who said legality is everything we must venerate at the cost of the suffering souls of the many?

One of the most dangerous distroyer of the modern society is the lawyer who cashes his living on the crimes of others. Many people who join the Law do so for money today. Compare with the spirit with which people join teaching.

It is an outright shame that the Law has lost its moral mission today. The good Lawyer becomes the first person to desecrate the Constitution. The Constitution is imagined with every well-meaning intention for the good of many except say the South African Apartheid Constitution that was made to commit evils against the many.

But when the Constitution enters the Court, it is reduced to a matter of debate. The cunning Lawyer gets away with it. This is our real problem in Malawi.

Our modern world is legally fueling anarchy because we have begun to live where anything is becoming possible as long as it is either legal, or it has failed to be proved illegal. Legality has become the law of anarchy.

Opposition Backbone Cracks in Malawi

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) President John Tembo has handpicked semi-UDF Brown Mpinganjira for his presidential running mate. Deep divisions both in the United Democratic Front (UDF) and MCP have followed.

It was first the Opposition’s one voice, one war against five consecutive annual national budgets in a relentless political storm against their government and people’s interests. Now the Opposition is wrecked after the storm on the seashore of betrayal, confusion and anarchy. The rest is political drama of a deep tragic measure.

Trusted but cunning Mpinganjira betrays UDF Chairman Bakili Muluzi while Tembo drags “a political stranger” to MCP without knowledge of the party leadership. At the same time, Tembo also betrays Muluzi who was counting on an MCP-UDF alliance to dislodge incumbent President Bingu wa Mutharika.

As the drama unfolds, all those once touted in town as UDF alliance members have also picked their nomination papers from Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to try their luck on May 19 elections. This means besides Brown Mpinganjira – Gwanda Chakwamba, Ralph Kasambara and Kamlepo Kaluwa are not fighting with Muluzi. He is betrayed!

It may look like the hasty sandwiching together of Mpinganjira and Tembo is icing the cake for the MCP-UDF alliance. It is not. Muluzi was unaware of Mpinganjira’s intentions.

Two weeks ago in Mulanje, Mpinganjira announced his “unquestionable loyalty” to Muluzi. Those who listen to memory remembered that Mpinganjira spoke exactly the same way just before ditching UDF to form his National Alliance for Democracy. This is how Mpinganjira fools others, and this is a character Tembo is blind about.

Mpinganjira knows he cannot lead Malawi in 2009 because it is extremely difficult to defeat a candidate who is a sitting President. He is paving his way to power in 2014 because that will be what is called an open term when there is no sitting president contesting. Mpinganjira’s thinking and strategy is to frustrate the Opposition old guards and clear them out of the way in his political press-ups towards 2014 elections after Bingu wa Mutharika. This is what people may never of Mpinganjira.

Muluzi himself never really knew Mpinganjira, and he never probably learnt any lesson from history. “My loyalty to Muluzi is unquestionable,” and he quits him. That is why Muluzi may never recover from the shock of this betrayal both psychologically and politically.

It was at the same Mulanje rally that Mpinganjira reminded Muluzi never to forget that “it was the Sapitwa region that first asked you to stand again.” Yes, they first asked Muluzi in writing to return to power against the Malawi Constitution. And that is revealing.

It was the work of Mpinganjira – the masterminder of “Muluzi’s Come Back” to poison Muluzi with politically acidic advice that would wreck him to political shreds so that Muluzi must be buried right on the political stage. Mpinganjira’s support will go with NDA officials who infiltrated UDF and those bigwigs who want Muluzi to quit the stage for younger generations. That is why this drama is a tragedy for Muluzi and those who believed in his coming back.

John Tembo calculated on the division and betrayal in UDF. Tembo believes that by picking Mpinganjira who comes from Mutharika’s political stronghold, he will sway the President’s voters where they are strongest. Unfortunately, Mpinganjira does not own any significant political podium of his own in the Lomwe belt. He has only quietly played the betrayed Muluzi’s political child with a waiting tactic. Will Mpinganjira speak to the Democratic Progressive Party stronghold with the voice of the UDF where it lost roots? Will he import MCP where it does not exist three and half months to elections? And what is Tembo’s political wisdom?

But Tembo’s move has equally generated animosity inside MCP. Already, Speaker Louis Chimango, Bester Majoni and the Lilongwe MCP stronghold opposed the bluff of the MCP-UDF alliance. That is why Majoni’s fall during primary elections was stage-managed and Chimango has his own chiefs turned loose upon him suddenly. Tembo was out to punish those that opposed his intention to sell the MCP to Muluzi.

This time around, Tembo never consulted the MCP leaders of the Lilongwe party stronghold. They also are betrayed. As we go to press, there is a Consultative Process Meeting underground to chart how best to respond to Tembo’s undemocratic move that frustrates MCP potential and clean leaders. The division is deep and Tembo may not like the frustrated response of those capable Malawians he has undermined for so long under him.

It is all chaos and betrayal in the Opposition as presidential candidates fill in their nomination forms heading for May elections. There is no such time for them to get organized. The confusion and betrayals dishearten voters and faithfuls who look for straight-forward leaders. Is this collapsing of the Opposition an opportunity for Bingu wa Mutharika?

An Interview with Muluzi

When the Chief Reporter for Malawi News opened the media door for Muluzi to give a “Special Interview” on 3 January 2009, Muluzi was clear that his ambition to stand again has everything to with himself and his party and little to do with Malawi as a country.

“We had as a party taken a move for transition for Dr. Mutharika and I was not in the equation for coming back. I would like this very clear. It was only when Dr. Mutharika left the UDF and even went further to form his own party. That threatened my party,” says Muluzi.

The worst fear is confirmed. It is all about bitterness, revenge and a war to save the face of the wounded party. This is what Malawi’s critical voices have said all along. I remember the University of Malawi Bright Molande’s “Candle Burning in the Storm” insisting on revenge and bitterness as the real motives and cause of Muluzi’s political behaviour, that the rest are mere excuses and propaganda springboards.

What is more to it? Muluzi has also awoken to the fact that his bulldozing style of leadership has consistently killed the party. He has lost the legacy and he feels he cannot retire from politics in that mess.

“There is no way I am going to leave the UDF now in such a state of affairs. Let me be here. I went to the people and said UDF vote for this man. Do you think people will trust me again? … For me to say I will give you another person again. No.”

One reads in the interview the deep fear retiring without honour, without legacy, the fear of descending into political oblivion. His last dream in the equation of coming back is to project the last image of leadership before his party. It is the loss of trust of his followers that eats Muluzi up, inwardly. It is the man’s inward war of the soul to restore lost trust that completes his equation of coming back. In the way Muluzi speaks, it is first all about himself, and second his party, and nothing really to do taking Malawi anywhere forward.

Here, Muluzi speaks with a patronizing attitude when he speaks giving his party a leader as though the party has not matured to the democracy of collectively deciding its own leadership. One may find this attitude an insult to many intelligent members of the party and those who trully love democratic principles within.

Elsewhere, Muluzi is a desperate man who will do anything to exact his vengeance upon Bingu wa Mutharika. That is why he is entering a political alliance with MCP. This political marriage of convenience is already fiercely opposed within MCP ranks. That is why John Tembo is staging the political downfall of Speaker Louis Chimango and Bester Majoni who are opposed to the alliance. Muluzi is bent on using MCP in his ambition to surmount Malawi again.

Malawians remember as well that before what Muluzi calls “the equation of coming back”, first he had to fail in the equation of staying on in power. The constitutional and goodwill of the people prevailed upon him. Even as Head of State then, Muluzi knew well that he could only rule more only if the Constitution changed.

So, the seed of the ambition to keep on ruling Malawi was planted elsewhere before. Its black flower hanging on Muluzi’s image of a new democrat still eclipses Malawi’s history of democracy. Muluzi should know history.

He offers credit to Kamuzu Banda for bringing independence in 1964. But that history lesson slightly misses the heartbeat of truth. He says “we needed to move a little bit forward…because the world was changing particularly Southern Africa.” No. We needed change because we were suffering under dictatorship.

This time Muluzi claims he wants to change things. But the Law, the donor community, the mood, the numbers and probably the Divine will are all against his desires. Muslims have been petitioning and praying against Muluzi’s coming back lately. They have discovered what he is. “In 1994, people had no time to scrutinise him. They simply wanted change. Even a chicken could have ruled them,” says Al Haj Alick Likonde, chairman of the Quadria Muslims who suffered untold misery under Muluzi’s rule.

Then Muluzi is honest enough to accept that after independence and democracy, “we needed economic transformation, economic development … [because] people don’t eat these things.” Implicitly, he publicly accepts that his rule badly needed economic transformation.

Otherwise, Muluzi political theory that a period of democratic consolidation cannot happen together with economic development is false and non-existent. Or else, who is to tell us the book, chapter and verse for this miscarried political theory? If this political theory is valid, why is it that Muluzi’s first five years registered a positive economic trend just when we were mounting the structures of democracy?

Will Muluzi prevail against the Law, the donor community, the mood, the numbers and the Divine will?