Can Lazarus Chakwera bring meaningful change to Malawi?

The road to the 2020 Presidential election re-run in Malawi can best be described as a ‘nail-biting’, increasingly polarised and a tense journey. Malawi has been going through economic and political strife for some time now and under then President Peter Mutharika (80) and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), despite his government’s commitment to deal with these challenges, in addition to the high rates of corruption, unfortunately his administration failed to quell these myriad of problems. The planned 2019 election even before it occurred had already been viewed from afar as a ‘make or break’ election and just as Mutharika wanted to continue his rule into a second term, so too did the opposition which comprised of high-profile candidates one of them being Mutharika’s own Vice President whom he had a fall-out with in 2018 (interestingly enough a similar situation that plagued Peter Mutharika’s late brother and former President Bingu Wa Mutharika and his Vice President Joyce Banda), Saulos Chilima (47), a successful business man who was once in charge of the country’s largest cellular network Airtel Malawi and a much younger candidate than his previous boss. There were several others but the third most prominent one was Clergyman Lazarus Chakwera (65) of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Mutharika was declared the winner of that election but opposition leaders such as Chakwera vehemently challenged the results on the grounds of wide-spread voter irregularities, such as the use of tippex which was a correctional fluid used to alter some results.

This led to a court case with the country’s Constitutional Court making the difficult but brave decision of nullifying the election and calling for a new one, a decision Mutharika opposed, and was only the second time that an African country had cancelled an election. The first country to do so was Kenya following its disputed election in 2017. However, Malawi stands out as the only country in Africa where the opposition won following the re-run of the election. This decision by the court went a step further and changed the electoral system from “first-past-the-post” to a system where the winner must receive more than 50% of the vote. Chakwera, who initially came second in the 2019 election formed a coalition with Chilima’s United Transformation Movement (UTM) and eight other parties, including the Peoples Party (PP) which is led by former President Joyce Banda, called the Tonse Alliance and the alliance won the election by a majority garnering almost 59%. Malawi has now passed the period of transition and an end of more than a decade of Mutharika rule, with a brief respite between 2012-2014, by the Mutharika brothers and is now in a time of its new government to deliver on its promises.

“The elephant in the room”

Malawi like most countries on the African continent has been bedevilled by corruption which has brought its economy to its knees and several high profile cases come to light such as Malawi's biggest financial scandal known as “cashgate” in 2013 which likely led to former President Joyce Banda losing elections that year and coming number three. The rates of corruption are shocking for a country largely dependent on donor funds and its lack of a diversified economy as the country lacks the diversity or rather quantity of mineral deposits that its neighbouring countries enjoy means it is cash strapped and its only meaningful source of economic output is its fertile land as its economy is largely based on agriculture, followed by tourism as the country enjoys a variety of wonderful natural sights such as the famous Lake Malawi, game reserves and its largest mountain, Mount Mulanje. Hence, Chakwera has his work cut out for him as he mentioned in his inaugural address after been sworn in to office that “we must clear the rubble of corruption” which was one of his campaign pledges, in addition to reviving the economy and in a time of the novel coronavirus his task to rebuild the economy will indeed be very great. Chakwera will also have to make great strides in uniting the country as it is divided along ethnic and regional lines, with Chakwera’s party enjoying support from the central and northern areas of Malawi.

According to Dewa Mavhinga, Southern Africa director at Human Rights Watch, President Chakwera must place human rights and rule of law at the centre of his new government. This is because the country experienced a spike in political violence, particularly electoral violence with opposition politicians and activists being harassed prior to the re-run election in June. This will be in line with the Presidents own inauguration speech in which he said “Malawi will be for everyone” and putting action to this early in his presidency without unnecessary delays or diversions will put his government on the right trajectory, which will improve its image both regionally on the African continent and internationally.

‘Regaining trust with the international community and becoming less reliant on donor aid’

Malawi needs to reclaim the trust of donors following revelations of plunder of public resources in October 2013. “Development assistance in form of direct budget support is an important part of financing for Malawi”, according to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) resident representative Farai Gwenhamo, and while the there have been some improvements in public finance management to safeguard financial resources for the government, the country has to regain the trust of development partners. Hence, the IMF will wait and see whether such reforms towards public finance management will produce results and this is where Chakwera can really show sound leadership through being transparent on how his nation uses these funds which will go a long way in regaining donor trust, alleviating poverty and improving economic productivity.

However, Malawi is among the world's most aid-dependent countries accounting over 40% of its national budget which is a concern. One way this opinion piece puts forward for Malawi to reduce its dependency on donor aid is to confront the scourge of corruption which has become endemic in the country. Cashgate stands out as one of the biggest corruption scandals to hit the country where a forensic audit commissioned by the government of Malawi, with support from the UK’s Department for International Development saw as much as 20 billion Malawian Kwacha (approximately US$42 million) disappearing from government coffers. Hence, the urgency in tackling corruption by this new government by enforcing strong measures against this scourge which Chakwera has promised to do.

‘Diversifying its agro-based economy’

One of Chakwera’s campaign pledges was to "revive the Malawian economy" which will indeed be his biggest challenge and the hopes of all Malawians to finally have its own version of the Rwandan economic miracle, which I will call “the Malawian economic miracle”, whereby successful government policy will play an important role in growing the country’s economy through well thought out measures. In order to achieve this Malawi seriously needs to diversify away from cash crops and indeed beyond agriculture because, it leaves the entire economy susceptible to weather shocks and the adverse effects of climate change. As mentioned earlier, Malawi is heavily reliant on donor aid to fund its own needs, hence having an economy largely based on the primary sector, in addition to its budget mainly funded from outside really does not bode well for the Malawian economy and a continuation of this pattern will simply keep the country in its current stagnant state. 

Hence, the new government needs to ‘think outside the box’ and look within its boundaries and see areas that could actually generate sufficient revenue. One area is tourism which generated US$43 million in 2018 and this can be expanded as Malawi is indeed a beautiful place to visit with a variety of places to visit as mentioned in Malawi’s official tourism website, key among them being Lake Malawi which is the fourth largest fresh water lake in the world by volume and third largest lake in Africa, and is an area the government can harness particularly once the current coronavirus pandemic ends. Indeed, it is about time that Malawi changes its trajectory and become one of the fastest growing economies on the continent as it has all the necessary mechanisms for it to succeed. Malawi is not known to be mineral rich like its neighbours in its region but the recent ‘gold rush’ has risen hopes that the country sits on gold deposits which could bode well for its economy in the long run and with a new administration which wants to destroy the scourge of corruption this could further improve the country’s economic fortunes and make it less reliant on donor aid, as well as further diversifying its economy.

‘Chakwera’s new cabinet’

Chakwera recently announced a new cabinet consisting of 31 ministerial positions. This is considered large, especially for a small country like Malawi and the President’s recent appointments did not inspire the confidence the country was hoping for as allegations of nepotism and conflict of interest have arisen. However, Chakwera is fully aware of this, he has to be as Malawians expectations were really high following the dismal performance of the previous administration. According to my own analysis of Chakwera’s decision to select a large cabinet maybe due to the fact that he is in a large coalition which requires positions to be shared amongst the parties involved. The Human Rights Defenders Coalition, which led sustained countrywide protests against the disputed 2019 elections, were not impressed and said it was concerned by nepotism and regionalism in the selection of ministers. President Chakwera defended his new cabinet and emphasised that his decision was based on merit, in a speech to reassure the nation. He also further stated in a message to his new cabinet that, “I want you to hear me and to hear me clearly …You each have five months to produce results that will give Malawians confidence that change has come. Should you prove the sceptics right by being lazy, abusive, wasteful, arrogant, extravagant, divisive and corrupt, I will not hesitate to have you replaced.” Should Chakwera indeed stay true to his word Malawi may finally be on the ‘right path’ to a brighter future.