Why Malawi Pres. Peter Mutharika can be re-elected if elections were to be held today

On a lazy Sunday like this, I like listening to radio so today I came across the acting leader of Peoples Party Mr Uladi Mussa on Zodiak. He was articulating that there is need for the opposition to join forces, field one presidential candidate in the 2019 polls and voila, APM is unseated at the ballot box.

The way he presented his arguments, it was as of it will be easy to do so as long as the opposition field one presidential candidate. I doubt it is as easy as Mr Mussa thinks it would be to unseat APM. In 2009, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the United Democratic Front (UDF), then a political force to reckon with, joined forces and decided to field one presidential candidate, JZU.

I thought the presidency was going to JZU at that time but Bingu remained adamant that he would crash the alliance at the ballot box, ndikunyenyaninyenyani nonse. Come May, Bingu had a landslide victory. Prior to that, Gwanda had a fierce alliance under Mgwirizano which also failed to knock out Bakili out of his presidential seat. So these alliances aimed at solely unseating presidents do not work out in Malawi.

As of now, I can say without any fear of contradiction that when we say opposition, it is the MCP and Peoples Party only. Other parties are briefcase, seasonal parties that come during general elections only. Then there is also need to bring sanity and order in both the MCP and PP as the current problems give APM and his DPP an edge over the opposition.

Both the MCP and PP look clueless, they do not know how to deal with their problems decisively once and for all, looks like there is weak leadership in the two parties. Therefore MCP and PP should put their houses in order if they are to start thinking of the Republican presidency. As of now, APM’s grip to power is unshaken and if the polls are to be held today, APM will make it, again!