Soon after former Malawi President Peter Mutharika eloquently declared at Njamba Freedom Park that he would win the 2025 Malawi election with a huge landslide, incumbent President Lazarus Chakwera has seized every opportunity to refute such an assertion on multiple occasions.
First, in Blantyre during the commemoration of Kamuzu Banda, he assured Malawians that he would not lose the forthcoming presidential race and would thereafter continue his plans of uniting Malawians and fostering infrastructural development.
As if such a response was not enough, President Chakwera once again recently in Lilongwe explained why Malawi is undergoing untold economic miseries under his watch.
As usual, President Chakwera cited Cyclone Freddy, Covid-19, the Russia-Ukraine war, and other unforeseen circumstances as inevitable hindrances to economic progress in Malawi.
For starters, it is indeed true that the aforementioned factors adversely impacted almost every country in the world, including our own beloved nation, Malawi.
It also remains a fact that the magnitude of the impact due to such factors varies depending on an individual country’s economic resilience.
Furthermore, Malawi, being one of the poorest countries in the world, is expected to experience a relatively colossal adverse impact from such factors.
However, it is mindboggling to hear Chakwera blaming these unforeseen and unplanned circumstances for our ailing economy without providing pragmatic solutions.
Former American Secretary of State Colin Powell once said that leadership is about solving problems. The moment people no longer come to you as a leader to resolve their problems, it signifies that they have lost confidence in you. They will simply label you a failed leader.
In the same vein of reasoning, one is objectively tempted to ask, what has Chakwera’s regime done to resuscitate the ailing economy amid these unfortunate circumstances?
For instance, some two years ago, an economic recovery plan programme was launched under the auspices of Malawi Vice President Saulos Chilima. Is the country’s economy getting better now?
What has Chakwera’s regime done to manage Malawi’s 13 trillion Kwacha domestic and international debt?
Obviously, our ailing economy will not improve by idly blaming natural disasters while Chakwera’s regime depletes government coffers through massive borrowing and careless overspending.
What deliberate measures has Chakwera’s government put in place to stamp out corruption as was promised during political campaigns?
Malawians know that President Chakwera singlehandedly pardoned Bakili Muluzi, a corruption suspect, and Uladi Mussa, a corruption convict, and recently, high-profile corruption suspect Dr. Saulos Chilima.
It is flabbergasting to note that President Chakwera thinks that our ailing economy will improve on its own by just blaming natural disasters while tolerating corruption, a vice that derails economic progress.
Unfortunately, blaming natural disasters and the previous DPP regime for the current worsening economic situation in Malawi will not bring substantial winning votes to the incumbent President Chakwera.
In conclusion, Malawians are looking forward to President Chakwera, as a leader, to offer practical solutions to rampant joblessness, abject poverty, selective justice, corruption, nepotism, tribalism, regionalism, poor public service delivery, public security, and the worsening economic situation.
President Chakwera is cordially advised to urgently address such socioeconomic ills before the 2025 Malawi presidential elections. Otherwise, Mutharika is most likely to carry the day in the next Malawi presidential race.
