LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The appointment of the Kazako family and the Kandodo family is a desperate attempt by the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) to sabotage Democracy and it is the re-birth of dictatorship in Malawi.
In every democracy, we have three arms of government namely Judiciary, Legislature and Executive. However, it has been argued that the media is the fourth arm of government. Granted!
The Legislature is headed by the Speaker of the National assembly and MCP controls Parliament as they have their member, Catherine Gotan Hara, as the head of the legislation and they also control the Executive as Lazarus Chakwera is the head of the Executive.
It is common knowledge that the Judiciary has largely influenced regime change in Malawi suggesting, without doubt, that the MCP also controls the Judiciary.
The above scenario means that MCP controls all the three arms of government and was only remaining with the media to completely put the nation under siege and suffocate any criticism and suppress diversity.
The appointment of the Kazakos and the Kandodos is therefore an attempt by MCP to control both the public and private media as Zodiak radio/TV and Times Group Media belongs to these two (2) families and obviously MCP will also control the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).
The disheartening reality is that even the emerging governance institution which is supposed to provide checks and balances to the Executive , the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) is even engulfed in party politicking hiding behind the banner of CSOs. The church is also rotten to the core and they take sides without any shame of diversion.
We are therefore in a very unfortunate situation, as a democracy, where we need a critical thought on perspective which asserts that the news media’s role in democracy is influenced by those with political power or wealth despite being critical players in shaping and strengthening of the principles of democracy and good governance.
This is evidenced by Dr Anthony Gunde’s journal “Rethinking Media Ownership and Democratic Governance in Malawi from 2002 to 2012” in which he concluded that it is only Nation Newspaper (Week end Nation) which has stand the test of many regimes and has demonstrated editorial indipendence in its content
“Between 2002–2012, Malawi was governed by three Presidents representing three different political parties and they all expressed distaste towards the Weekend Nation newspaper. During this period, it was found out that its political ownership had no direct bearing on the journalists’ political role to enhance democracy and good governance in Malawi”, he asserts.
This is why the MCP can now play hide and seek with Malawians and can be insensitive to their actions as evidenced by their recent change on Universal Fertilizer Subsidy campaign promise, a U turn on 1 million jobs, politicking on tax free bracket and the latest childish and selfish selection of families and siblings as cabinet membes besides being dominated by Chewas from Central region.
The only power Malawians have now is themselves and their belief that they can change things if they want and indeed they can.
Every organization Chakwera has been part of has been run by intimidation.
He will try it here again but only if we are dumb enough to allow him