{"id":66871,"date":"2018-06-15T08:23:22","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T06:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=66871"},"modified":"2018-06-15T08:23:23","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T06:23:23","slug":"peter-mutharika-has-toned-down-sign-of-mature-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/06\/15\/peter-mutharika-has-toned-down-sign-of-mature-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Mutharika has toned down, sign of mature leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Peter Mutharika has toned down, if the Sunday Ntcheu political rally is anything to go by. At the rally, Mutharika did not threaten his political rivals with the usual Bingu wa Mutharika political-threats-trademark of ndikunyenyanyenyani. <\/em><\/p>\n

This is how things should be. Our president should be himself, and not a copy-cat of his brother, the late Bingu.<\/p>\n

This is why I am inviting the president to listen to Peter Tosh\u2019s \u2019 I am who I am\u2019.<\/p>\n

The president should be Professor Peter Mutharika; he should never ever try to be Bingu.<\/p>\n

Mutharika won the 2014 presidential election because he was Peter Mutharika himself, the Peter Mutharika people knew; cool, smart and academically intelligent.<\/p>\n

Therefore, I wonder where this \u201cchigoba\u201d Peter Mutharika is coming from; the Peter Mutharika who has resorted to shouting at his critics and those with different views from those of him and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP); the Peter Mutharika who has resorted to issuing provoking statements and, at times, slurs; the Peter Mutharika who has been issuing threats to anyone who disagrees with him on issues.<\/p>\n

This is not the 2014 Peter Mutharika who campaigned peacefully; the gentle Peter Mutharika who canvassed the votes in a more civilised way and never allowed his party officials to hurl insults at anybody; the Peter Mutharika who never allowed DPP Cadets to terrorise those seen or deemed to be holding dissenting views.<\/p>\n

President Mutharika should know that the era of issuing threats or shouting at the opposition or civil society organisation leaders, including the media, are long gone with Bakili Muluzi and Bingu wa Mutharika.<\/p>\n

Malawians never respected or feared Bingu because he was shouting at them, no; Malawians respected Bingu because he was their head of State.<\/p>\n

Malawians will never stop criticising the President just because he is shouting at them, threatening them with this or that, never.<\/p>\n

The President says some section of his DPP, the so-called Chilima Movement, is insulting him. I beg to differ, Mr President.<\/p>\n

Telling you that you are old is not an insult; it is a fact. You are 79 years old. Should Callista Mutharika say you are not old when you are about to hit 80 next year?<\/p>\n

Questioning your competence is not an insult. You are paid, fed and given all the State benefits using our taxes. Therefore, you are accountable to the taxpayer, including your in-law, Callista.<\/p>\n

Therefore, in my view, Callista has a right to say that the President is too old to rule the country; that he does not have leadership skills. That is her opinion on the head of State.<\/p>\n

Mutharika, the president, is not God that he is immune from criticism. If DPP women dance for him, sing praise songs for him; if he has a security detail that even Jesus Christ did not have\u2014 that does not mean he is a semi-god.<\/p>\n

He should accept he is human and makes mistakes; he is just mortal. If he wants to avoid criticism, let him leave the office of the President of the Republic of Malawi. Someone will occupy it. Malawians should not be told what to say and what not to say, and that they<\/p>\n

have boundaries on what to say or not to say. With or without the so-called Flags, Emblems and Names Act, Malawians will never stop criticizing presidents constructively whenever they do something wrong.<\/p>\n

After all, as a seasoned constitutional lawyer, the President should know that the Act is very archaic, very outdated, very imperial and was designed to protect the one party system of government. The Malawi Constitution gives us unlimited freedom of expression and that of the press\u2014 of course, taking into account that freedom is not absolute.<\/p>\n

If he feels injured, he can go to the courts to sue the particular person, party, media house or organisation for libel or slander, defamation or character assassination; that is the best remedy for such an injury.<\/p>\n

Mutharika himself and the so-called \u2018Mid-Night Six\u2019 were arrested in the run up to the election in 2014. Did that deter him from winning? The arrest actually made the president more determined, popular and energised.<\/p>\n

The past is there for us to learn from. He should sit down, take a deep breath and go back to such history as he plans for the future.<\/p>\n

To me, it is an insult to say that Callista killed her husband, Bingu, when the autopsy report clearly says that the former president, who was exported to South African when already dead with a funny name of Daniel Phiri, died of a heart attack.<\/p>\n

It is an insult for the president, the brother to the late Bingu, to allow the DPP secretary general Grazelda Jeffrey politicise the death of his brother. It is an insult to call Patricia Kaliati an idiot. The president should have stopped the DPP regional governor for the south, Charles Mchacha, from saying such a demeaning word to a lady\u2014 a lady who has served the DPP for many years even before Mchacha knew that he would be a politician.<\/p>\n

It is an insult to call the Vice-President of the Republic of Malawi a baby when, actually, he assumes the office of the president in care taker capacity when the head of State is out of the country on official duties.<\/p>\n

The 2019 election can be conducted without slurs and the hurling of insults.<\/p>\n

Mutharika should be in control, assert authority and be himself, not Bingu. I wish him all the best as he listens to Tosh\u2019s \u2018I am who I am\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Peter Mutharika has toned down, if the Sunday Ntcheu political rally is anything to go by. At the rally, Mutharika did not threaten his political rivals with the usual Bingu wa Mutharika political-threats-trademark of ndikunyenyanyenyani. This is how things should be. Our president should be himself, and not a copy-cat of his brother, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66874,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66871\/revisions\/66874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}