So Malawi Congress Party (MCP) is reportedly considering changing its constitution to allow Lazarus Chakwera to lead the party into the 2030 election.
Apparently, the argument is that Chakwera remains MCP’s “best shot” at returning to government.
Perhaps.
But there is a rather large elephant sitting quietly in the MCP headquarters:
The MCP constitution did not vote Chakwera out of State House. Malawians did.
That distinction matters. MCP may successfully amend every comma, full stop and clause standing between Chakwera and another term as party president. It may hold a convention and give him 70 percent, 80 percent or even 100 percent of the vote.
Congratulations.
MCP members are not the national electorate.
The political problem confronting Chakwera is not principally whether MCP still wants him. It is why millions of Malawians decided in September 2025 that they no longer wanted him as their President.
And, remarkably, MCP itself appears already to know this.
Its own post-election review reportedly concluded that the party had become disconnected from Malawians, had failed to listen to their concerns and had been punished amid serious economic hardship. Independent election assessments similarly identified economic distress, fuel and forex shortages, corruption concerns and voter dissatisfaction as major features of the election environment. Chakwera eventually received about 33 percent of the presidential vote.
That is the political problem requiring attention.
Changing the MCP constitution does not explain why people who voted for Chakwera in 2020 abandoned him in 2025.
It does not explain the collapse of the Tonse coalition that helped carry him into government.
It does not answer the anger over corruption.
It does not explain why his promises of transformation lost credibility.
It does not address the economic pain under his administration.
It does not answer the grievances surrounding his government’s handling of major national crises.
And, most importantly, it does not tell a voter who rejected Chakwera in 2025:
What will be different in 2030?
There is a dangerous political delusion here.
The DPP government’s present difficulties may be persuading MCP that time is automatically rehabilitating Chakwera. Fuel queues, forex shortages, governance controversies and public frustration with the current administration undoubtedly create political opportunities for the opposition.
But disappointment with Mutharika is not automatically renewed confidence in Chakwera.
Those are two completely different political propositions.
An opposition party that confuses them can spend four years celebrating the government’s failures and then receive a terrible surprise on election day.
Indeed, this is precisely where MCP should be doing the hardest intellectual work of its time in opposition. It should be asking what caused Malawians who enthusiastically voted for change in 2020 to remove that same government only five years later. Which constituencies were lost? Why? Which promises ceased to be believed? What mistakes were structural? Which were leadership failures? What would MCP do differently? What does the party now understand that it did not understand while governing?
And then comes the most uncomfortable question:
Is Lazarus Chakwera the person best able to demonstrate that MCP has understood those lessons; or does returning him to the ballot communicate that MCP has learnt nothing at all?
That question cannot be answered by amending a constitution.
It cannot even be answered by an MCP convention.
Only the electorate can answer it.
This is why the party should be careful about congratulating itself for discovering a constitutional route back to Chakwera. It may succeed brilliantly in removing the obstacle that prevents him from becoming MCP’s candidate while leaving completely untouched the obstacle that prevented him from remaining President of Malawi.
One obstacle is written in the MCP constitution.
The other is written in the minds of the voters who threw him out.
The first can be amended at a convention.
The second requires political renewal.
And if MCP cannot understand the difference, perhaps its post-mortem discovered the party’s problem more accurately than the party itself realised:
It still isn’t listening.
— Ntata Stinger
Leave a Reply