Madam President, where is the change you promised?

The last time I checked, one dictionary defined CHANGE as follows:

a. To cause to be different

b. To give a completely different form or appearance to; transform

This is to say CHANGE basically means something being or making it different from what it originally was or how you found it.

In terms of political governance, CHANGE means doing things differently from how you found them.

A more practical definition would be to turn things around to be in keeping with the larger interests of the people. It is about conducting things and behaving in a way that shows that mistakes of the past are the lessons which keep guiding your transactions, manners and style.

In political governance, CHANGE does not just end at replacing a tenant at STATE HOUSE. It involves the new tenant at STATE HOUSE being an agent of change in attitude, will and resolve. It means making sure that anything and everything that the general population (not just supporters of the tenant’s party) abhorred, or kept the country on its knees should not be repeated. It is means that styles for doing things and systems that perpetuate evil must be eliminated. It means that under the new order, you are not going to repeat the evil of the past and justify it because your predecessors did the same.

In political governance, CHANGE means eliminating all laws that don’t serve the purposes of all the people (not just supporters of the tenant’s party). That kind of CHANGE does not mean changing or removing only those laws that hurt you, and retaining those that you can use to hurt others.

That CHANGE means that the language you use to speak does not retain the disdain and scorn that dehumanize your opponents. It means removing all bottlenecks that deter the existence of a level playing field for objective engagement and equitable competition.

This is the kind of CHANGE that does not just end on your lips but finds expression in your actions. It is the kind of CHANGE that does not just dwell in rhetoric, but finds comfort in doing.

CHANGE in political governance does not just mean replacing the ruling party. It means replacing the abhorrent political system and methods. This change means closing down all schools of thought that bred the evil schemes of the past.

If decisions based on proximity and patronage are the ones that destroyed this country under your predecessors, under CHANGE you base your decisions on fair competition and excellence.

If in the past people complained about the unprofessional conduct of MBC and the political intrusions that influence its editorial decisions, including the fact that the legal instruments governing it make the organisation susceptible to political manipulation, under CHANGE you don’t perpetuate the professional indecency and further exploit the mischievous legal framework. Under CHANGE you eliminate professional indiscretion and cause the enactment that guarantees a service to the state, not to the ruling party.

When President Joyce Banda came into office, she promised CHANGE. She has been in office for close to a year now but a lot of things that disappointed people under previous administrations are yet to change. Instead they are being perpetuated. For those that appear to have change, there is no guaranteeing that they will hold. Being in a election season, some of the changes may simply be for purposes of playing to the voters. For real change is fixed in concrete slabs and stabilizers of revolutionary reforms to mindset, systems and the legal regime.

Some of the areas where perpetuation of evil is taking place includes:

1. Recruitment based on nepotism, proximity and patronage, not competence and abilities

2. Contracts in government continue to be given to those close to the first family and the ruling party.

3. Political scheming against political opponents continues

4. State institutions being used to persecute political opponents or being manipulated to shied political friends and neighbours of those in power

5. Executive arrogance continues where the Head of State, desperate to mobilise support for election purposes, doesn’t want to listen to stop unnecessary trips that contributed to blowing her annual allocation of finances in six months.

6. The gap between the haves and the have nots is widening, with only a few having access to national resources

7. The application and enforcement of the law is selective in that respect of the Constitution remains at the instance of the Head of State, while suspects that are in good books with the system are left scoot free.

8. Empty rhetoric and executive lies are being allowed to form policy for running government, taking advantage of the ignorance of the population

9. MBC continues to be a national disgrace. The erroneous notion that the institution is at the service of the ruling party, not taxpayers, is being perpetuated

10. State companies continue to finance activities whose aims are to perpetuate the partisan interests of the ruling party.

11. The habit of ruling party supporters to think they are more Malawian than others continues.

12. Intolerance to contrary views, regardless of their objectivity, continues with those holding them being branded as unpatriotic

One can only scarcely hope that a day will come when real CHANGE will come to Malawi.