Giboh Pearson,
a contemporary Malawian musician came to the limelight when he released his hit
“Izathera ma penalty”, that can literally be translated that “It will
end with penalties”. Here he presumably referred to a sports match such as
football that ends in a draw during the regular game time and goes into
post-match penalties in order to determine the winner. Ordinarily, the best
time to win a match is during the regular game time. Actually, no team whether
the weaker one or the stronger one of the two (competitors), would want the
match to go into post-match penalties because no one is guaranteed a win.
Post-match penalties are kind of painful to the losing side, especially if the
loser happens to be the one that was superior during the in-match performance.
If it is not post-match penalties, the other and more painful way of breaking
the tie is the golden goal where extra time is added and at any time one of the
two teams scores the match is ended.
Giboh here
is applying an analogy of the post-match penalties to the events that ensue
when there is unceremonious breakup of a sweet romantic relationship between
two adult people, either in marriage or otherwise. In his lyrics, Giboh is
warning his or her romantic partner-to-be that he or she will not just
use-and-dump him or her, without facing consequences.
“Awiri
sangayende asanapangane”, meaning that two people cannot start off on a
journey without a prior agreement ... about where they are going and for what
purpose, what mode of transport they will use, what time they will start off
and return, who pays for transport, etc. In between the lines, he is talking
that a heartbreak is so painful that he or she will not let his or her partner
go unpunished should he or she do so.
“Ukazangoti
wandisiya, ndizakupondetsa kasipa”, meaning if his or her partner will dare
dump him or her, he or she will bewitch him or her. In totality, Giboh is
asking beforehand his or her partner-to-be to either commit to the relationship
for good or not to start the relationship at all, if he or she will not afford
to commit for good.
Talking of
romance, the Malawian politics of post-1993 are characterised by short-term
romanticism, as such Giboh Pearson’s advice comes handy. But first of all, let
me explain what I mean by politics before I encourage politicians to get free
advice from this song as we head towards the electioneering season in the runup
to the 16th of September 2025 General Elections?
In this
brief writeup, I define politics as all activities of cooperation, conflict,
and negotiation in decisions about distribution of burdens and benefits among
members of a given society. This means that politics is an essential and
unavoidable platform in all human societies. As a platform, politics is governed by rules or political institutions that can
be broadly classified into; who rules (electoral
institutions) – these are rules, procedures and processes that govern how power
is earned and distributed, and authorize its use in particular ways; and how
he/she rules (accountability institutions) – these are rules,
procedures and norms that govern how power and authority is exercised. That is,
rules and procedures governing policy decision making process. How
well established, popularly accepted and agreed these political institutions
are in a particular society, determines the level of political stability of
that society.
In Malawi,
as is the case in most low-income countries, because of an underdeveloped
formal productive economy that would produce more public resources (through
taxes, jobs, etc) and allow the for allocation of resources through more formal
mechanisms (such as child grants, universal coverage of child grants, old age
support, unemployment benefits, etc), clientelist politics takes centre stage.
As tax revenues are insufficient for formal redistribution, politicians rely on
selective and informal redistribution mechanisms to survive. In this sense,
clientelism is in the eyes of politicians, a rational mode of politics, given
the need to ensure stability and viability of their (ruling) party.
How have
Malawian ruling elites worked with insufficient public resources?
Kamuzu
Banda’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP) faced almost non-existent opposition,
courtesy of abolition of multiparty politics in early 1970s, that partially
insulated his rule from opposition threats. As such, Banda did not need to
disburse public resources to private individuals formally or informally to
secure stability of his ruling MCP. The Banda’s MCP considered itself secure
enough to develop a longer-term vision for the nation and comfortably allocated
the required resources for the same. Indeed, Malawi did much better than most
countries in the region in terms of public institutions and infrastructural
development during the almost 3 decades of Banda’s MCP rule.
At the
reintroduction of multiparty electoral politics following the 1993 national
referendum, the opposition threat to the ruling parties’ stability kicked in.
All post-1993 ruling parties starting with the Bakili Muluzi’s United
Democratic Front (UDF), Bingu wa Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party
(DPP), Joyce Banda’s People’s Party (PP), Arthur Peter Mutharika’s Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP), and Lazarus Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP),
faced threat of opposition. As such, in order to survive these parties, have in
one way or another, been disbursing public resources to private individuals,
mostly informally, to secure stability of their being in power. Courtesy of
simple majority electoral rule, these parties enclaved and massively supported
a narrow regional area that ensured that, at minimum, an electoral win. Using
the simple majority, any electoral region with about 30 percent plus of the
voters, can dominate. No wonder the UDF-cum-DPP, courtesy of simple majority
electoral rule dominated for almost three decades since change to multiparty
electoral politics in 1993. As simple majority tended to weaken opposition
threat to their ruling, the dominant parties also tended to grow politically
arrogant as they would consider themselves untouchables.
The voter
domination being the broader characteristic of the post-1993 ruling parties in
Malawi, however, in between them they faced differing levels of opposition
threats to their ruling. Due to existing threat of the Kamuzu Banda’s MCP,
Bakili Muluzi quickly rounded up key MCP leaders including Kamuzu himself with
house arrests to lessen the force of opposition threat. He also focused on
privatization of state-owned properties in order to raise funds for
redistribution, mostly informally, to individuals including key persons in the
opposition parties with a goal of remaining in power. Formal accountability
institutions such as the Ombudsman, Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Malawi Human
Rights Commission, were put in place, but merely for ticking the boxes with the
donors, and not for the service of Malawians. The decade of UDF rule was often
referred to as a “lost decade” by the people on the streets.
The
political legitimacy of Bakili’s UDF was lowest during his second term, made
complex by his failed attempt for open term and third term bid. On his
retirement, his anointed successor and UDF candidate for the 2004 General
Elections, Bingu wa Mutharika faced a hard time. His marginal win of about 30
percent of the counted votes was a testament to the weak legitimacy for a
ruling party. In simple arithmetic terms, this election results indicated that
about 70 percent of the population did not approve Bingu as their leader. This
was a toll order in terms of opposition threat to his ruling.
His direct
condemnation and denouncement of his own party (UDF) right at his inauguration seemed
to have rescued him from his imminent collapse from power. Even though the
official parliamentary opposition was expected to soar with his ditching of UDF
to form a new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the actual situation played
out differently. Actually, the political pattern changed: the ruling 30 percent
became the minority opposition, and the opposition 70 percent took over as the
ruling. This boosted Bingu’s legitimacy with one musician calling him (Bingu) “Mose
wa lero” meaning modern day version of the biblical Moses who rescued
Israelites from Egypt. Indeed, Bingu easily sailed through to the second term
with about 70 percent of the total votes counted at the 2009 General Elections.
His sense of relative low opposition threat, coupled with funding from the debt
relief of highly indebted poor countries (HIPC funds), enabled him to focus on
both short-term but formal disbursements (agricultural subsidies) and
longer-term projects such as the Nsanje Inland Port.
Unfortunately, in his second term, he and the successors that came after him, went back to the narrow regionalistic
politics full of inform clientelistic disbursements of public resources to
individuals. This reversal, brew utter resentments from the Malawians who, in
turn, voted out Joyce Banda’s People’s Party (PP) in their debut electoral
attempt in 2014 and Arthur People Mutharika’s DPP in its re-election attempt in
2019/2020.
With the
Constitutional Court re-defining electoral majority as 50% + 1 vote.
The Malawian political landscape has changed. The regional enclaves that
anchored the parties in the past have significantly been disempowered. The
50% + 1 vote means that any party looking forward to winning a presidential
election needs to embrace coalitions and alliances with parties dominant in
other regions.
What free
advice does Giboh Pearson give to parties as they gear up for 2025 elections?
Giboh
Pearson is giving free advice to the about-to-be couple parties that are about to
enter into political coalitions and alliances that for fair play, they should carefully do their
prenuptial agreements. Like in romantic relationships, he is warning that those
alliances have potential not end up well, may end up in penalties. I
want to extend that the dissolution may actually be by a golden goal,
where if one partner scores that is the end of the game.
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