President Peter Mutharika and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) were hailed as torch bearers of freedom, beacons of hope for the eventual self-determination of the oppressed and marginalised people after taking power from clueless Joyce Banda.
But within a short span of time, Mutharika and DPP have inserted themselves as de facto sultans, some sort of elected monarchs.
In many respects they are even worse than their predecessor.
Their methods of governance as well as development are skewed and extremely out of touch with the bulk of the population.
Though many factors account for this particular and dreadful observation but the tried-and-found-wanting politicians contribute to the President’s lack of ethical leadership and integrity.
Such politicians sing juicy music to which the leader gradually dances until the leaders assume a mammoth’s proportion that disconnects them from the real-self, reality on the ground and the vast majority of the country’s inhabitants.
These recycled politicians have no scintilla of principles. No question, for the past decades, almost all of them have changed party colours and leadership praise-singing without disgrace, taking selfish advantage of circumstances with no regard of the consequences for the masses.
Every Malawian, in theory, has the overarching duty of upholding the tenets of a democracy. One way is to combat a culture of silence and lies, especially on public matters of concern.
And political and religious leaders are best placed to understand the importance of truth telling.
But for merely notifying government in their statement released last Thursday that the DPP administration has failed to perform and that its leadership has demonstrated indecisiveness on critical matters, the Public Affairs Committee (Pac) has riled DPP who have resorted to publicly and categorically criticising Pac labelling it a political grouping in disguise.
And the remarks DPP General Secretary Grelzedar Jeffrey made Tuesday during the 2017 tobacco marketing season launch and what she has spewed before reveal that, as early as it is, Jeffrey is just another worthless (but expensive) furniture addition to the DPP framework.
It is a heartbreaking sign that the country is still driven by the same visionless people who have failed to take us out of the same mess for decades now.
Perhaps Jeffrey does not know.
The public have a right to know how the DPP government handles matters on behalf of the overstrained taxpayers. This underpins an important element of fiscal transparency and good governance in a democratic set-up.
And Pac had just somewhat performed one of its core duties in a democratic society – to inform the citizenry without fear or favour about matters that concern them.
Pac’s and the citizenry’s constitutional expectation is that the President and DPP will provide strong, steady, visionary, ethical and sacrificial leadership – which they promised in their manifesto – rather than practising unsustainable and destructive theft-o-cracy, as currently is the case, where Malawians are fed to corruption news day in, day out.
Pac is not an enemy of development, which has eluded Malawi for almost 53 years since independence, as Jeffrey would want the country to perceive it.
Pac has not prevented the President from putting into place informed and deliberate polices that will grow and invigorate the ailing Malawi economy and bring some measure of fiscal sense in Malawians’ livelihoods.
Pac has not prevented the President from demonstrating his intolerance for scams and abuse of taxpayers’ resources.
And Jeffrey remarks really indicate that the DPP leadership is stuck in the flattery, aggrandisement and opportunism gutter fashioned by the recycled politicians of which it must haul out if the country is to register any significant growth.
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