The 23 June Fresh Presidential Election was a critical juncture for our country and raised hopes of a new Malawi when Tonse Alliance led by Malawi Congress Party’s (MCP) Dr. Lazarus Chakwera triumphed over the then governing Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Arthur Peter Mutharika
The Tonse Alliance led by Chakwera and UTM’s Saulos Chilima promised to take Malawians to Canaan and deliver them from systematic poverty, corruption, tribalism as well as fix the ailing economy.
However, sixteen months down the line since Tonse alliance was ushered into power, nothing much has changed on the ground and the campaign promises that propelled people to vote for this governing coalition of ten political parties appear to have been thrown into the dust bin.
The cost of living has gone extremely high, the Kwacha is depreciating against other major currencies, cooking oil is beyond the rich of the ordinary folk and to make it worse, the Energy regulator – MERA recently also adjusted the prices of diesel and petrol sending the prices of goods sky rocketing.
The one million jobs, duty free week, reduction of passport fees, free electricity and water connection and reduction of presidential powers among others have turned into empty rhetoric which are now becoming common in this part of the world where after a public outcry, we are treated to a concoction of beautiful English prose in an exaggerated American accent.
First it was the bloated cabinet filled with family members, the 6.2 billion Kwacha COVID-GATE, refusal to make public the Chilima reforms report on government systems of allowances, procurement and employment contracts, a presidential aide smuggling a 93 billion Kwacha loan authorization bill to parliament allegedly without cabinet approval, the NOCMA fuel scandal and the list is endless.
The forest might have changed but the monkeys otherwise remain the same and the trust people had in this government is fast fading as we are still grappling with the same evil we were marching against when APM was re-elected in that nullified 2019 presidential election.
Lilongwe has become the new DPP era Thyolo and it is the turn for Mulhakho Wa Chewa to eat the cake while the rest of us suffer in silence as they are now everywhere and have their friends, concubines, relatives and cronies calling the shots.
