Malawi democracy in a test tube

He successfully used a policy of tit-for-tat to survive in a politically hostile environment. Today he says he is not a dictator but a disciplinarian and that the new policy of shoot to kill given to the security agencies is mainly to ensure national security.

Malawi’s incumbent president can swear in public that he is a democrat and that he has not detained anyone for dissenting views. He can indeed display the accolades he has attained the world over for his successes, such as in the field of food security.

One of the poorest nations in Southern Africa, Malawi was a perennial beggar for food support. This is no longer the case and this can convince you that the Malawi leader, former international diplomat and an economist by training is indeed a ‘modern Moses’ as his praise singers regard him.

However recent events in the country will no doubt leave an observer with questions as to whether he is presiding over a democratic nation.

Malawi, which attained independence from Britain 47 years ago, endured three decades of authoritarian rule by founding president Dr Hastings Banda. Dr Banda virtually ruled the country as a fiefdom, tolerating no dissenting views and detaining real and perceived enemies while others together with their relatives fled the country.

Things began to change from 1991 with the demise of the Cold War, which had insulated his leadership style. Malawi swiftly moved into a multiparty system of government. Banda’s own former protégé, Bakili Muluzi, dislodged him through a referendum in 1993 and a competitive multiparty election in 1994.

Notwithstanding economic failures characterised by high inflation, prohibitive interest rates and corrupt tendencies, Muluzi’s tenure is credited with consolidating democracy and the rule of law. He tolerated dissenting views, while press and religious freedoms flourished.

Muluzi handicapped Bingu wa Mutharika to succeed him after his third term bid was rejected by Malawians. The constitution allows only two five year terms. The electoral process which allows a simple majority ensured Mutharika’s slim victory in the third democratic elections.

Mutharika began as an unpopular president. He realised his political survival depended on distancing himself from Muluzi, his mentor, and the ruling party -the United Democratic Front (UDF). A year into office Mutharika did the unexpected. He dumped the UDF, denouncing its leadership and arresting most of the top officials suspected to have been engaged in corrupt practices. He slowly built support despite constitutional limitations on movements of members of parliament from one party to the other.

Many parliamentarians joined his newly formed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), making it the ruling party from the backdoor. The courts ruled that these movements were illegal, but using popular support Mutharika ignored the judiciary and those Parliamentarians remained in office. Opposition efforts to get Mutharika impeached flopped as Parliament lacked the necessary procedures. He faced problems in passing bills as the opposition benches out-numbered his. He used tit-for-tat policies and mass appeal to win support until the 2009 elections.

The politicisation of the public-funded agricultural subsidy programme and the resulting bumper yields since 2006 helped Mutharika scoop a majority from the less-informed rural masses in the 2009 polls, consequently his party won a landslide. The party grabbed over two-thirds of the 197 seats in Parliament, as well as over 60 per cent of the presidential vote.

Civil society viewed this success with pessimism.

‘While the large turn out to the polls is a good sign for our democracy the land-slide victory is detrimental to its growth. When African leaders get such support they abuse their power,’ observed veteran human rights activist Undule Mwakasungula, as quoted in the media.

As if to confirm these fears the first move by the new parliament in 2009 was to approve laws which allow police to search homes of suspects without a court order. Despite protests the president assented to the laws.

Malawian police have a reputation for brutality. Cases of suspects dying in detention are rampart. The constitutional requirement of bringing such suspects to court before 48 hours is usually ignored. The vice state president, Joyce Banda, and an international award winning development activist were unceremoniously removed from the ruling party.

Many Malawians see Mutharika’s success in the 2009 as a result of Joyce Banda’s grassroots support.
‘I voted in the elections because I saw her elevation to the vice presidency as the beginning of a move to end male chauvinism in the country. Joyce is a motherly figure, very hardworking and a model to all women. However the abuses she gets on state radio leaves most of us disappointed,’ says Mary Phiri, a female activist in Blantyre.

The Catholic Church, through its bishops, then issued a pastoral which among other things criticised government for dictatorial decisions on national issues such as changing the national flag, abuses of state resources and disrespect for the office of the vice president. The government issued a response to the pastoral letter, trashing its contents.

The DPP does not have elected officials. The president appoints and fires the officials at his whim. This means decisions in the party are made from the centre with the rest acting as passive recipients.

However, political analysts have argued that the real issue behind the recent firing of the top officials from the party was due to reluctance of the two in endorsing the president’s brother as candidate in the 2014 elections.

‘The dismissals have shown that Mutharika is not tolerant of dissenting views. He wants his word to be final. This is not the feasible in a democracy,’ argues Mustapha Hussein, a political scientist at the University of Malawi.

Ironically, many people credit Mutharika for relatively low levels of crime in the country. This is true when compared to the high rate of crime during the reign of his predecessor. However it was unusual for the president to command the police to shoot and kill criminal suspects without the accepted due processes of law. The order has been condemned by the public and civil society.

The recent saga involving university lecturers over the issue of academic freedom, the decrees on the reopening of the Malawi Electoral Commission, the discontinuation of the sedition case of a church minister all point to a questionable adherence to democratic norms by Malawi’s current citizen number one.

* Akwete Sande is a freelance journalist based in Blantyre Malawi