‘Hope abounds ...and it is an exhilarating feeling’
A new chapter has begun in the history of Malawi, writes Susan Dalgety
election and rerun the ballot – Kenya did it in 2017, with Cote D’ivoire first in 2010.
The decision, and how it was been greeted so far, shows a political maturity that far richer countries, with much older democracies, can only hope to emulate.
The contrast between Malawi’s young democracy grappling, determinedly, with an electoral crisis and the shambles of the Trump presidency is stark.
The world’s biggest economy also self-identifies as the world’s best democracy, yet the judicial and legislative branches of its federal government seem powerless in the face of a demagogue.
A one-time reality TV star and multiple bankrupt has taken personal control of the United States of America, and its people stand helpless.
Not so in Malawi, where a coalition of the churches, civil society and the media, supported by the main opposition parties, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the United Transformative Movement (UTM) campaigned to unseat what the majority of people regarded as an illegitimate president.
And they won.
“I am so happy, I am over the moon,” my friend and colleague Maggie Banda said on Monday night following the judgement.
“Our country had been hi-jacked by thieves. This is a new beginning for Malawi.”
That sense of a fresh start has been palpable on the streets of the country’s capital Lilongwe.
People greet each other smiling and laughing. UTM supporters in their red berets and T-shirts wear them proudly. They are no longer defiant losers, but a movement with a future. Malawi has changed. The only demonstrations are ones of joy, as MCP and UTM supporters celebrate together.
But hope can be fragile. Remember Obama? Malawi’s entrenched societal and economic challenges, with their roots in colonialism, remain.
High court judges cannot command an immediate end to the widespread poverty that plagues the majority of Malawi’s 18 million population.
Popular will cannot, on its own, tackle climate change, and Malawi, a small landlocked country in the south east of Africa, is an insignificant player in the global economy.
“The biggest challenge facing our people is food security,” argues Dr Asiyati Chiweza, a Professor of Local Government at Chancellor College.
“We cannot progress until our people have enough to eat, all year round,” she tells me over coffee at the end of day spent discussing how best to support Malawi’s councillors.
Malawians depend on maize flour to prepare their staple dish, nsima.
Most grow the corn themselves, in small gardens next to their village homes.
But their crop doesn’t last a full year, and many people are forced to buy maize during the peak “hunger” months from November to March.
This year, for a number of reasons, the price of maize has doubled during the hungry period, putting it out of reach of many households.
“If there is no maize flour, people do not eat,” says Dr Chiweza simply. The UN estimate that right now, this week, there are nearly two million people in Malawi urgently in need of food assistance.
It is this stark truth, people going to bed with empty stomachs, that