GOVERNMENT

WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THE NEW ADMINISTRATION By Ananiya Alick Ponje It is oftentimes said that modern governments live and die on their economic records. This is in virtue of the fact that a government is never recognized as a vibrant one if its economic performance does not inspire anyone, especially foreign investors, to invest in the country. The fact that modern governments live and die on their economic records is applicable in both industrialized and developing ones. During the last five years of economic performance and subsequent analysis on the part on the government by different analysts, it has been observed that Malawi has performed quite well on economy with the last development being the country registering another 0.5 decrease in inflation. This is not something that many come on a silver platter, but there is need for someone to mastermind it. The brain behind it has a task of strategizing procedures for achieving the same. And this is connected to other dimensions of performance which might not be very economic in nature. President Bingu wa Mutharika’s political performance has tackled sufficiently all areas affiliated to it. One thing that should not be discounted about political performance is that a good political performer encompasses other dimensions as well which may seem not to be political in nature. These dimensions create the whole bundle of political performance as one thing. And in most instances, regardless of how many they are, if some of the them have flopped, a regime’s political performance is dented. Yet in Malawi, we have a leader whose political performance has been rated as one of the best in Africa. Such an achievement may seem mean to a layman’s perception, but it is in actual sense, an historic one. The ultimate analysis has been drawn out after discovering that Mutharika has done well in all areas, despite a few hiccups. Everywhere in the world, with the priority of democratic states, citizens expect the government to maintain order, to resolve conflicts in peaceful manners, and to provide a peaceful and free climate where people can live without fear of being harmed or even killed. These are some of the things that will determine the political performance of a government. Citizens also expect their government to be able to formulate policies which will ultimately respond to their basic needs and problems. All these aspects are, at a lower level, supposed to be carried by legislators and cabinet ministers. Even if they did not vote for a particular candidate, citizens will still expect free and fair treatment by government authorities. They also have all the trust that the authorities will use public resources for the defined purposes of government and not to satisfy their own interests. That is why the president has since his re-election been extolling the virtues of burying the hatchet and moving forward for the good of the masses. In common Malawi, it is now common that citizens expect the authorities to excel at being democratic, at safeguarding civil and political liberties, honoring the provisions of the constitution without tampering with it even if one side has a majority that would enable it to. Here is where the Mutharika administration will be required to show citizens that these aspects were not withheld during the past five years because of lack of the political muscle due to minority of representation in the National Assembly, but that the administration did everything in good faith. Since it is now entirely accepted that Mutharika is a great economist and a political performer, the last analysis is based on what his performance will be now that he has the ‘majority temptation’. It is bound to have immense social and political effects, thereby producing a far-reaching loss of confidence from the populace, should the president mess things due to the majority of representation in the National Assembly that he has at his disposal. Of course, he has already assured Malawians that the majority will be used to the advantage of Malawians in general, and not the DPP as a party or any individual. On the other hand, it is expected that the president will shoot his political performance, especially on the dimension of economic performance, because despite registering a great economic upheaval in the last five years of office, the president had inherited an economy that had been lying in tatters. On the other dimensions of political performance, particularly freedom, order and security, there is a clear assurance that this administration will maintain them and even improve if the measures that are already there will be re-employed and strategized further. Mutharika will also be labeled one of Africa’s great political performers should he ultimately view the opposition as a necessary entity in the government system despite having the muscle to tramp over it completely. He might be the first to implement the aspect of majority rule and minority rights. However, since the government is the one with the majority rule aspect, the real tension between the need for collective decision-making and respect for choice might not be of significance. To the newly elected cabinet, the ministers are supposed to take things in a very professional way because this is the era of ultimate political performance where a non-performer will not need to stay. In their different capacities, they will be required to achieve certain goals which might not be vivid, while the president might have already set for them. They need to be aware of the fact that cabinet reshuffles come to purify cabinet. Overall, citizens must be put first. As a practical matter, issues of public importance are seldom resolved by a unanimous decision. Opposition will always be there, but it might not matter at all. In virtually every instance, there will be losers and winners, but the best justification for majority rule is that it provides a legitimate and realistic way to make collective decisions. The most significant thing is that the government accepts the fact that there is no higher authority than the citizenry. And this is the time for the opposition to experience some kind of a bumpy ride since they will no longer have that power of rejecting bills wantonly. Their authority will be vanquished beyond measure. However, all they need is to accept that this is another era of Malawi politics where the opposition is only necessary in the government system while mattering very little or not at all.

POLITICS

Time for politics of performance By Ananiya Alick Ponje In both authoritarian and democratic regimes, politicians need money to sustain their activities be it in campaigns for elections or the selling of their ideologies and policies to the electorate. It is no denying fact that money is central in politics as much as it is to our daily lives. In fact, without money, political parties would not operate because there would be no way they would easily convey their messages to the voters. However, one significant thing about political money that should be born in mind is that it has its own limitations as well especially in modern Malawi which has become like America after the Enlightenment Period. In Malawi we, at some point in time, had political parties that had at their helms ‘open-handed’ individuals who spent substantial amounts of money on anything if it meant buying the support of voters. One thing however, remains underlying: no one knows whether everyone can be enticed by money so that they may finally vote for the ‘money-giver’. Yes, people may receive the money or any other form of handout aimed at buying their support but the choice of every voter is a secret thing that is entirely known only by the voter himself, unless if the voting process is done in a way that supporters of a candidate stand behind him/her like in the case of primary elections. However, even in such types of elections, there is no evidence that ‘supporters’ of a particular candidate are really their supporters. In fact, a certain individual during the botched-up primary elections in a certain constituency confided in me that he would vote for candidate A not because he supported him, but because he had ‘patronized’ one of the feasts that the candidate had prepared to woo the support of voters. This informed me that even if the candidate made it, the ‘untrustworthy’ voter would still vote for someone else in the general elections. It is very easy to find examples of candidates who have spent substantial amounts of money on election campaigns aimed at buying the support of the electorate only to fail miserably at the polls. An example of an incident where a candidate used so much money to plug his views in different ways to buy the support of voters is the referendum that was held in a once glorious Zimbabwe in February 2000. The aim of the referendum was to seek a majority of votes that would enable president Robert Mugabe have his proposed new constitution implemented. Mugabe paid for many major media so that they published stories about the ‘positive’ parts of the provisions in the new constitution. He used money in different ways to lobby on all issues which he deemed positive in the ‘reformed’ constitution but failed miserably. He was shamefully defeated by a scantly organized opposition which had not even done enough awareness on the same. Here is where it becomes clear that there are voters who do not just vote for the love of the candidate but for their own future as well. The new constitution was to give President Mugabe too much power and the voters knew that he would in turn oppress them severely if he attained his wishes of having the constitution amended. In modern societies it is becoming very hard to manipulate the underlying choices of the electorate with money. It appears politics where money rules is becoming extinct, or maybe it was never there. Money does not necessarily buy votes, but perhaps it helps in maintaining the candidates’ relationships with their potential voters through frequent contacts so that the voters do not lose interest in the candidate because of too much ‘absence’. Although money is undoubtedly central in politics, it is not the only important resource. Other political motivations and forces can be used as tools of winning the favour of voters. The policies of the candidate, the already instituted development projects and academic credentials are some of the motivations that may help a candidate win the favour of voters as evidenced form the recent parliamentary elections where people purely voted on the basis of these aspects. Another classic example which vindicates the argument that money is not the only driving force towards political prosperity is the case of the British billionaire businessman Sir James Goldsmith who paid about 2 million pounds in the general election of 1999 to present a line-up of candidates opposed to Britain’s integration into the European Union. Nevertheless, his Referendum Party proved a very scanty force in Britain’s politics. He never succeeded. Of course, someone may argue that that was politics in Britain, but it is the case in Malawi too. The last general elections that we had have revealed that people in Malawi are no longer ‘hide bound’ and they are more concerned about their future than their present, hence their desires to choose a leaders who are going to uplift their lives even if the leaders have not given them handouts. Legislators who have made it to parliament need to put into consideration the fact that much as money is important in politics, it has its limitations as well, hence there is need to involve other strategies that would maintain their voters’ support if at all they desire to make it again come 2014. It may seem too far but a journey of one million miles begins with a single step. Voters now look for leaders who are going to provide for them continued sustainable ways of living, not necessarily leaders who are going to give them handouts. But they are going to receive the handouts anyway and they are going to sing songs of allegiance to the giver.