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The demonstrations were organised and led by the civil society, with support from some churches and the oppositions. Although we agree that Malawians have the right to freedom of speech and have to have their voices heard on crucial issues that affect their daily lives, and their views should be taken into considerations and their wishes respected, we believe that the civil society, the church and more especially the opposition are being a little harsh on the President and to some extent hypocritical.
To begin with the Civil Society, human rights groups and all, have the mandate to uphold the human rights of all Malawians at all times. In our view the human rights organisations in the country have only been making noise recently against the government and only after the fuel and forex shortages. Surprisingly Malawians are having their rights violated every day by groups other than the government and no demonstrations are being held against these groups. A good example is the Malawians who work for businessmen of Asian origin. These people are forced to work like slaves and have to endure all sorts of insults and at the end of the day are paid peanuts, which are extremely below the standard cost of living. To be more specific we have heard of workers being locked overnight in bakeries and factories to slave away endlessly so that the owners can make super profits and yet their workers have to endure the long working hours in inhuman conditions with little or no protective gear at all. When are Mr Hajat and Mr Mwakasungula going to hold demonstrations for these poor Malawians?
The Church too has failed society, especially the youth in Malawi. Today you see a lot of young people failing to get their lives in the right direction because they lack spiritual guidance which the church is supposed to provide.
It seems most churches today have forgotten the youth and left them to their own fate. Every week churches collect money from their congregations but what do they ever give back to the society. What we mean is today the youth are criticised for doing nothing but indulging in unproductive activities such as drinking and smoking cannabis and premarital sex, but if you look at the situation it goes down to the fact that the youth have no alternative activities to take participate in. The church with all the millions it collects from its congregations could at least set up sports tournaments and other talent identifying activities to keep the youth busy and make them feel appreciated and have a sense of responsibility. It is the role of the church to influence the lives of the youth and groom them into positive citizens.
Finally the opposition, whom we believe are the biggest hypocrites of all. How can they claim to care about the budget now and the well being of the people when during the President’s first term all they were interested in was impeaching him and taking the reins of power at the expense of passing of the national budget and the well being of the Malawian People? The opposition must not try to blind the Malawian people that they have their well being at heart, when in fact they are just power hungry and if they should ever get the chance to rule this country they will most likely, be as greedy and selfish as they claim the current administration is and will do very little to improve the lives of the poor Malawian. They talk about the President not being democratic, but as I recall they is one opposition leader who does not take to criticism from his fellow party members and deals ruthlessly with anyone who dares oppose him, and ironically his party constitution forbids him from running as presidential candidate again, but it is very unlikely he will adhere to his party constitution, so if someone does not respect democracy at their party level, it very doubtful they would respect democracy when in the Sate House.
