Of misguided zealots and gold diggers: Malawi ruling Peoples Party

Way back in April 2012, this author asserted that many individuals joined the Peoples Party (PP) seemingly to support President Joyce Banda had their own parallel agendas ranging from enriching themselves (at the expense of national welfare) to seeing to it that President Joyce Banda fails.

Back then, I expected well-meaning people to agree with my word of caution. The feedback I received, in fact, was to the contrary. I got telephone calls, emails and posts, challenging me to provide evidence backing up my remarks.

I accepted the dare, and out of the many examples I have picked up two strong cases to prove my point.

The first is the party zealotry demonstrated at Justice Manyungwa’s funeral. The PP horde, by any standards, goofed at Justice Manyungwa’s funeral, as lamented by Inkosi (T/A) Bvumbwe of Thyolo.

And not only did they degrade our cultural values, they tarnished President Joyce Banda, painting her in the process as a rotten opportunist who will conduct a political campaign even at a funeral ceremony.

The one thing to note is that the subsequent heavy-handed reaction followed and threats on the chief notwithstanding, President Joyce Banda – on the scene – accepted the admonition.

Developments that have followed more than prove my April 2012 assertion. Mr Brown James Mpinganjira, a recycled politician of note, summoned chiefs in Thyolo. He did this by passing the Minister responsible for Local Govt, Mrs Grace Maseko.

It has been reported and confirmed that he had a meeting with the chiefs in the District Education Manager’s Office, without the nod of Mrs Eunice Kazembe the Minister of Education. Then, he ferried the poor chiefs to Blantyre to parade them at a “press conference” vilifying T/A Bvumbwe.

This press conference charade was conducted at the Central Office of Information (COI), and as far as I am aware, without the knowledge of dear brother Moses Kunkuyu the Minister of Information.

What does this tell us? Or more emphatically when Chief Bvumbwe was condemning the shameless PP zealots’ behaviour why was Pres. Joyce Banda nodding? And what else does her nodding signify other than agreement?

The second case is on the events on the May Day commemoration. At this function, there was a “Voice to Joyce straight talk” which, considering where we were not too many years ago, was a step in the right direction. With the previous regime, ordinary people were not sharing the podium with the Big Kahuna.

Voice Mhone presented his wonderful speech and Her Excellency seemed to be appreciative. She acknowledged Voice Mhone’s concerns and gave her side.

Everyone at the function, save for a few I will dwell on in a short while, applauded him for telling it like it is. The MCTU president came in and also offered free counsel advising further scrutiny of the prosed labour export.

Now look at this: the minister responsible for Labour, Mrs Eunice Makangala was at it; demeaning him to score cheap points in front of Pres. Joyce Banda. She did not stop there, but found an angle to bring in Atupele Muluzi and Arthur Mutharika – people who have nothing to do with the Labour Day.

To make things worse she managed to decampaign the PP by openly declaring that the labour export is strictly for orange intellectuals and I quote:

“Those getting jobs abroad belong to you (Pres. Joyce Banda) and government not Union!”

Seriously? Have we already reverted into the disgusting inequitable development mode? Does PP need and want to go “the-them-against-us” route? And does PP want to go down this road when Malawi is heading towards an election?

If this is not political suicide, what is?

To conclude, I hate to sound pompous, but I was right. Indeed, there are many characters in the Peoples Party (PP), who are under the pretext of supporting President Joyce Banda; ensuring that she goes down in history as the shortest lived presidency.

The sad thing about this is that while these gold diggers will migrate to the next government and ruling party, President Joyce Banda will in May 2014, be busy wiping not an egg, but rotten eggs, off her face.

What a shame!