Inside Malawi’s shotgun wedding

Lazarus Chakwera’s ascent to the presidency was made possible by the nine-party Tonse Alliance

On June 28 Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) won the country’s presidential electoral rerun. He led a nine-party opposition coalition, the Tonse Alliance (Together Alliance). His running mate was the vibrant and popular Saulos Chilima, the leader of the United Transformation Movement (UTM).

The Tonse victory appears to have consolidated the country’s democracy, at the same time revealing redefined roles of a new consensus built on the judiciary, the military and civil society organisations.

At first glance, Malawians have voted for the party they rejected in 1994 as part of their transition towards constitutionalism through multiparty democratic elections after 31 years of “death and darkness”. (On achieving independence in 1964, the prime minister and later president, Hastings Banda, declared Malawi a one-party state under the MCP.)

Twenty-six years later, the MCP has benefited from the complex machinations and attempts to impose transitional leadership succession that have characterised Malawian politics for the past decade and a half. In 2004, president Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) acrimoniously ended his second tenure after failing to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term. After he left office, Muluzi foisted on his party and country the little-known former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi and later finance minister, Bingu wa Mutharika. This came at a time when the opposition was boycotting the electoral process.

Within months, Wa Mutharika and Muluzi had fallen out, with corruption and treason charges levelled against the former president by the incumbent. Mutharika then formed his own political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while sequestering legislators from the UDF. In April 2005, Muluzi apologised to Malawians for having facilitated Wa Mutharika’s ascension to office. He then fled to the United Kingdom until May 2008.

Early in his second term, Mutharika began planning who would succeed him. He asked deputy vice-president, Joyce Banda (DPP) to step aside for his brother, law professor Peter wa Mutharika. Banda resisted and was unceremoniously removed from the party. She immediately formed her own party, the People’s Party.

On April 5 2012, the unexpected happened. President Bingu wa Mutharika had a cardiac arrest and died. Thereafter, the DPP discovered that the Constitution provided for the vice-president, in this instance

Joyce Banda, to take over, which she did. Allegations emerged that key DPP officials had asked that either the attorney general or the commander of the defence forces, General Henry Odillo, run the country for a time to prevent Banda from assuming power. Odillo refused.

Banda served out the remaining term until the May 2014 elections. The DPP reorganised, with Peter Mutharika as the leader, and won the May 2014 poll. Meanwhile, an internal corruption case, the “Cashgate scandal”, had embroiled Joyce Banda’s administration, resulting in the loss of public confidence and the possibility of arrest and detention. She fled the country for four years.

Peter Mutharika became president in May 2014 and, within weeks of his inauguration, Odillo was relieved of his duties. No explanation was given, but it was clearly tied up with the position he took in 2012. In the runup to and beyond the May 2019 elections, Mutharika continued fighting to retain the services of a discredited Malawi Electoral Commission, attempting to forcibly retire members of the judiciary and the military. Senior officers had to approach the courts to block the presidential decrees, and were successful.

As the country prepared for the 2019 polls, Mutharika fell out with his deputy and vice-president, Chilima. As had become fashionable, Chilima established his own party, the UTM, which is said to have connected with the young people.

The May 28 2019 election result, later criticised by the courts as “The Tippex Election”, had the DPP winning with 38.57%; the MCP and the UTM gained 35.41% and 20.24% of the vote, respectively. The two losing parties, the MCP and UTM, together with the Human Rights Defenders Coalition approached the courts, citing irregularities.

One of their criticisms was about the role of the electoral commission director, Jane Ansah, who was accused of being partisan and biased. The electoral commission and the governing DPP appealed against the injunction. But the high court of Malawi, in its verdict of the May 2019 election, overturned the results.

It was clear that, to defeat the incumbent, the opposition parties had to reach a pact of sorts before the polls. As the elections approached, it was clear that Chilima would be the kingmaker between the governing DPP and the established MCP.

The short history of the Tonse Alliance, whose main leaders marched on the streets on March 12 2020 and were inaugurated in power by June, reflects an entity emerging from a shotgun wedding whose endurance remains to be tested.

The marriage of convenience emerged from a sober evaluation of the losing percentages in the May election against the narrow victory of the incumbent, Peter Mutharika. On this the sums were obvious; if the two combined they would dislodge Mutharika. The losing parties were reacting to the 150-day cooling period before the presidential re-run offered by the court ruling succeeding to gain office as the logical outcome.

The question is: How deep is this relationship and will it combine the ideological idiosyncrasies and constituencies of the MCP and UTM?

As part of his new appointments, including a vice-president, minister of economic planning and public sector reform, and minister of finance, Chakwera has also removed the partisan acting police inspector, Duncan Mwapasa, and installed George Kainja with instructions to clean up the battered image of the police.

What has the Malawi election delivered? An entity that comprises a complex elite sits in the political saddle, while providing an opportunity for the judiciary, the electoral commission and the military to act in concert towards consolidating democracy in the country.

As Malawians rushed into the streets to celebrate, they must have been aware of the implications of what the poll has delivered, and will keep a watchful eye on the extent to which the actors remain true to their ideal of governing as servant leaders.