The genesis of a convenient political marriage between President Chakwera and his Vice President Saulos Chilima dates back to the time when they both lost to Prof Peter Mutharika in a 2019 presidential race that was determined by the simple majority also known as first-past-the-post majority.
After Saulos Chilima came third with 4 members of parliament, social media platforms were awash with his congratulatory messages to Prof Peter Mutharika.
However, when Dr. Lazarus Chakwera challenged the 2019 presidential election results that it had to be recounted, Saulos Chilima took a swift step further to lodge a complaint to the court with a plea to conduct a fresh presidential election.
In this scenario, the Constitutional court found it appropriate to merge both cases since they had similar complaints, mainly the presence of massive electoral irregularities.
Dr Lazarus Chakwera later decided to drop down his previous prayer of vote recount and joined Chilima’s pursuit of nullifying the 2019 Presidential election. This was the time when they found out that they were fighting the common nemesis, Prof Peter Mutharika.
While they were fighting a legal battle to nullify the 2019 presidential elections, Chakwera and Chilima secretly masterminded violent nationwide demonstrations with a view of intimidating the Constitutional court judges.
For instance, some demonstrators disguised as nyau dancers patronised court hearings up to the extent that the judges indeed felt threatened and were later moving with a police escort.
Much as Chakwera and Chilima signed their electoral alliance pact in public at Lilongwe sports centre, their signed document was not released into the public domain. It was obviously a secret pact.
What was mindblowing is that Chilima started to reveal the crucial contents of their alliance pact in various public rallies.
At a political rally at Njamba Freedom Park, Chilima claimed that they agreed to take turns in leading the Tonse Alliance. He revealed that it was agreed that Chilima would be the Tonse Alliance torchbearer in 2025. However, President Chakwera, in a public interview, vehemently denied this implying that he was not part of that agreement. This is the time many political analysts saw the signs of Tonse Alliance’s perpendicular fall.
By the way, which electoral alliance can take the risk of featuring a presidential candidate like Saulos Chilima who is barred by law from standing for presidency?
Without an iota of shame, Chilima went further to tell the nation that they agreed that he would be appointed minister of finance in Chakwera’s cabinet. Again Chakwera denied this political arrangement.
Indeed, President Chakwera did not appoint Chilima as minister of finance in his first cabinet. If Chilima was serious with their secret alliance pact, he would have complained at this stage. Surprisingly, he chose to keep quiet.
It is bewildering that some UTM supporters are distributing an archaic video clip in which Chilima is threatening that if the agreement is not respected, ‘then that will be the recipe for disaster’.
This sounds interesting. Why didn’t Chilima cause the disaster when President Chakwera broke their agreement by not appointing him as the Minister of Finance in 2020?
The truth of the matter is that no one is paranoid of such threats because Malawi is a constitutional country.
If President Chakwera wants to stand for presidency in 2025, he can do so because both the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Constitution and the Supreme Malawi Constitution allow him to join the presidential race in 2025.
In fact, Section 5 of the Malawi Constitution stipulates that any agreement, act of parliament or law that contradicts the Malawi Constitution is rendered invalid.
Therefore, Tonse Alliance pact is invalid because it contradicts the Malawi Constitution that permits President Chakwera to stand again in 2025.
In my view, both Chakwera and Chilima have mutually benefited from the Tonse Alliance. In fact, without Tonse Alliance, there is a high chance that Chakwera and Chilima would not have been the incumbent President and Vice President of this country respectively. There is literally nothing to complain about.
In conclusion, as we are drawing near to 2025 Tripartite General Elections, caution should be taken by political parties to enter into electoral alliance agreements that are in tandem with the Malawi Constitution.
