Sometimes understanding politics is not as hard as some people would like it to sound. The criterion is embarrassingly very simple and straight forward. You don’t have to know how to read.
You obviously don’t need to go to a fancy higher education institution. All what you need to understand the Nyasaland politics, is to at least be 30 years aided with a very keen eye for observing the political on-goings. Obviously, the criterion is based on my subjective analysis.
And of course, if you are reading this article, it means you’re more than qualified to understand how politics in Malawi work. What it means is that, if you can read, then you might not even need to be at least 30 years . I dare say you can even be under 18 years of age and still be able to effortlessly figure this whole political pandemonium out.
Let’s have a quick tour back from 2003 or 2004. In that time, Bakili Muluzi, the then president of Malawi, was desperately doing his best selling Bingu wa Muntharika to Malawians as a presidential candidate for United Democratic Front (UDF) party.
Dr. Muluzi had handpicked Prof. Bingu wa Muntharika after a disgraceful and unconstitutional failed attempt to vie for a third term. Since Dr. Muluzi had a lot of political power and not to forget that the man was also fortified with a great deal of eloquence, thus he cunningly and single-handedly managed to campaign for Bingu and successfully put him in power.
But that was just the beginning of an interesting political drama and circus that would continue many years to come. In 2005, Bingu unceremoniously dumped his former ally, Dr. Bakili Muluzi. That was also the birth of a new party; Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
As you can guess, what followed was a series of attacks and counterattacks. Dr. Bakili mobilised his loyal MPs in the parliament to impeach Prof. Bingu but unfortunately failed to do so.
You see, ladies and gentlemen, just a few years back, these two parties were seemingly sworn enemies and with that spirit, a bunch of people in the country lived in tension amidst those ‘political wars’. The regular people inherited those battles forgetting the personalities of those who started them. The relationship between those parties seemed worse than that of a cat and mouse.
For a moment, let’s forget ‘The Midnight Six’ after which Atupele Muluzi was appointed as Minister of Economic Planning and Development in Joyce Banda’s administration (later resigned) in 2012 and the 2013 ‘Cashgate’ saga. Let us, therefore knowingly ignore those embarrassments and just jump to 2014, the post election period. This time, DPP was back in power And then Voila! In that year it effortlessly made an alliance with the ‘sworn enemy’ party, UDF.
Well, here we are again, in 2020, with ‘new’ alliances.
For those who fought, cried, vandalised, felt the urge to kill and/or experienced some kind of heart attacks due to those political dramas, I say to you; please wake up.
