The Thinking Malawian

We, the sobre ones in the country and beyond, are watching events with grave concern as September 16 General Elections are approaching fast. A tiff that began with the opposition’s unsubstantiated claim of vote rigging by the government has mutated into a dynamite capable of razing down one of the fundamental pillars of democracy—free, fair credible elections. From the mainstream media to the uncultured social media society, the credibility of the forthcoming elections and the Malawi Electoral Commission has been thrown to the dogs, again thanks to the opposition. Since 2024 when Justice Annabel Mtalimanja assumed the chairmanship of the Commission from her predecessor Justice Chifundo Kachale, she has stubbornly been punching above her weight. Her inherited sin: because she's a daughter of former Malawi Congress Party enigmatic president John Tembo alias  Puludzu . However, the law provides that the chairman of the Commission must be a judge of the High Court, a requirement she me...

The joy that comes when you find out that your name is among the lucky few students selected for public university is ecstatic. But four years of study in the university is strenuous. Therefore, one must be sure that the degree program they are about to study in is worth it, because regret is worse than failure. Universities often get criticised for offering degrees to students that aren’t in sync with industrial reality. But things don’t go wrong, they start wrong. It is, therefore, imperative to first determine the relevance of your degree program in the industry before getting started. In Malawi, the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) is the body tasked with the selection of students into public universities. Before it was set by an Act of Parliament in 2010, each university conducted its own selection which resulted in several issues. Among them, some students got selected into multiple universities, depriving other deserving students a fair chance for...

The playbook of politics has a plethora of strategies for politicians on how to maneuver. The goal is to win the attention of voters and be on their side. Therefore, they stop at no kind of a barrier to get wherever you are and like their ideas, however appealing or otherwise they may seem. So long you give them your attention. Flooding the zone is a strategy often linked to U.S. president Donald Trump. It involves issuing a torrent of information aimed at overwhelming the opposition and the media and creating confusion. Remember the first week of his second term how president Trump clogged the airwaves and the newsprint with a barrage of executive orders. The news media worked frantically, trying to make sense of the executive orders, as the president on the other side, persistently signed more and more orders. In Malawi, the opposition, especially the DPP, has perfected this strategy and seasoned it with politics of grievance victimhood. As I wrote this piece, no scholar criticized t...

The demonization of Smartmatic, a voting and election management system software company hired by the Malawi Electoral Commission, is a result of both the opposition and some private media’s harangue. It’s an agenda they have masterfully set by citing how the company and its system fumbled in other countries. So, by repeatedly focusing on its imperfections, it has ratcheted up mistrust in the system by some Malawians. Now, with chronic inability to verify the news they consume, some Malawians, particularly those who gravitate towards the opposition, are convinced the system is bent on rigging the September 16 General Elections. That’s the perception out there and it’s spreading wildly. Truth be told, indeed Smartmatic has credibility issues. However, it must be noted that every system software is vulnerable. What matters most, however, is the threat level or magnitude of its susceptibility. In this case, therefore, the Malawi Electoral Commission must inspire confidence in the election...

The uncertainty that undocumented immigrants face in the U.S. today is the exact situation refugees found themselves in Malawi in 2023. Under President Lazarus Chakwera, the Malawi government ordered all refugees who settled in out-side-camp communities to herd back to Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa. Police and Immigration officers employed military force to arrest the refugees, similar tactics Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are currently using in the U.S. In addition, other refugees were forcibly deported to their countries. The Malawi government officials said some of the refugees were criminals fleeing justice from their countries, particularly Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Human rights groups, including the UNHCR, opposed the actions as a violation of international law but authorities justified the crackdown by citing security concerns.   Domestically, the mass relocations won the support of some sections of the disillus...

At the outset, let me say that I’ve great reverence to Bishop Martin of Mtumbuka of the Diocese of Karonga. He unapologetically speaks on matters to do with social justice and governance, in addition to guiding Catholics to their faith. And in an exercise of the same, on Saturday he rebuked some Malawi Defense Force (MDF) soldiers for allegedly mistreating the people of Kasasile in Nkhata Bay. He was speaking during the installation of Yohane Suzgo Nyirenda as new bishop of the Diocese of Mzuzu. The background to the story is that  The Daily Times  of August 31, 2024, published a story which chronicled alleged abuses by MDF soldiers on the people of Kasasile, accusing them of encroachment. The people outrightly deny the accusation. Consequently, MDF deployed soldiers to the area who, among other abuses; raided their houses and crop fields, including beating them up. The story of the people of Kasasile has been on the agenda ever since. No wonder, Bishop Mtumbuka spoke about it...

Dear God, The Bible, which we have been told is your word, says in Numbers 23:19 that, “You are not a man that you should lie, neither are you son of man that you should repent.” In other words, you are sovereign, blameless and just. But I have a question for you, the Creator. I expect nothing but the naked truth. Are we Malawians, right? Is there any truth in our boiling anger? You have given us peace for nearly 60 years, while our counterparts on the continent have had bloody civil wars. Now, between Malawians and our counterparts reeling from pangs of wars, who should be angrier than the other? Dear God, You gave us your pulpit man called Lazarus Chakwera as president. Was this a mistake? Or  you were not on your desk on June 20, 2020, when we made him president? Were you paying attention to what was to come? Did you know that there would be a high cost of living? If you did, why didn’t you prepare us for this? There is one more thing to inquire about,  ...