MALAWIANS ARE TIMID BUT THEY ARE LET DOWN BY POLITICAL SELFISH AND TIMID POLITICAL PARTY LEADERS I had a discussion with a friend and concluded that Malawi has passive political party presidential aspirants. Our opposition leaders have been stretched and tested on how far they can go with leading the masses in fighting for their rights when it comes to issues of national importance. The best these leaders have done so far is to go out and talk about the obvious issues affecting us at their political party meetings. This is to show us to that they know about them and say they will do better if voted into power. Telling the masses about new ideas is not a problem; actually that’s why we have multi-party politics however there are other issues that do not wait until one is in power. We know that all our presidential aspirants sit in their comfortable homes and live lavishly while we are out here angry with issues affecting us. Our opinion is that leadership can be shown even when one is not yet in power. Leaders should not just wait for their supporters to fight alone while they sit in their comfortable homes. Why has none of presidential aspirants joined demonstrations about issues Malawi is facing now? It is obvious that issues about president’s frequent travel and wasting of limited resources, lies on rotten maize in silos, sale of the jet and stealing of government’s funds are more national than political problems. Regardless which political party one belongs to, these issues have gotten into our nerves. We have now come to a standstill with no hope of achieving anything. We now know that we will not know the truth about cashgate until after elections “IF” PP loses the elections. We just heard that we should forget about knowing names of names of the people and companies involved in cashgate. Just imagine we saw this coming once the British High Commissioner in Malawi spoke. It is now official that government is not listening to the extent that private and suspicious jets are landing in Malawi and we are all looking. Honestly our issues are too grave compared to what we see people revolting about if we are to believe what we see on TV every day. What evil would a government do to justify the citizenry to demand unconditional ouster of its leadership? Civil Society Organisations have tried to mobilise demonstrations a number of times. Let’s forget about their personal motives for a moment and ask ourselves if their concerns are valid or not. The issues that John Kapito and friends have been trying to push for are of national importance. But why don’t we see many Malawians going out and support them? Should we conclude that Malawians are timid and stupid that everyone can abuse them without complaining? Why is it that we see many people attending rallies than demonstrations about important issues? My answer to these questions is that Malawians are not fools; they are actually clever because they do not want to be burned in the sun, soaked in the rain, teargased, or die alone while their so called leaders are having coffee in their homes. Imagine how many people would come to protest on these issues if Dr. Chakera, Prof. Mutharika and Mr. Muluzi announce they will participate in the demonstrations. Just imagine if all those people who attended presentation of nomination papers had come out to follow their leaders in these demonstrations. We have seen different political party presidential hopefuls attending inauguration of bishops, funerals and other functions so why not demonstrations? We have seen politicians joining demonstrations in Egypt, Ukraine so why do our leaders shun demonstrations and leave it to their followers only? Should we say the political party leaders fear of being exposed if they show up at a demonstration? But what about those supporters who put their office work, businesses and reputation at risk attending the demonstrations, should they risk all that for the sake of a timid leader? Are they afraid of being teargased? Then who wants to be teargased? Do they fear that if they get to the helm they will be treated likewise? If they condemn what is happening now and promise us they will do differently then why should they be afraid? More importantly what if the PP wins again, will they wait until they get into government. My appeal to our presidential aspirants and leaders is that the time is now. Come out and lead us in demonstrations and test if Malawians are really timid and slack.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 20:21:04 +0000
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