As I consider the events of this past week, I am confronted with the pithiness of the quote from Karl Kraus: Corruption is worse than prostitution.
The latter might endanger the morals of an individual; the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.
Sidik Mia and George Chaponda have been making the headlines; one as the Political Prostitute in Chief, and the other as the Corrupt Pimp of President Peter Mutharika and his DPP administration.
What bothers me though, is not these two characters’ right to obey their clearly out of whack moral campuses, but our collective excitement as a people in cheering them on as they pompously defecate on our nation’s moral and political fabric.
But before I zero in on why the excitement over Mia’s joining of the MCP should tell us about the moral bankruptcy of MCP, and why we should not even get excited anymore about George Chaponda until and unless his black ass in thrown in jail – permanently – let me first theorise on the scholastic points of political prostitution.
Looking at the political environment and the political parties in the country, it is difficult to say that any of the existing political parties is stable.
A stable political party is noted for its cohesion, organizational capacity, fair supremacy and internal democracy. The dominant group of political players in Malawi fall into the class of unprincipled, power hungry and desperate politicians.
They are political prostitutes. Any politician who has belonged to more than one party qualifies for the title. Political prostitutes are not team players.
Political prostitutes are that breed of dangerous crisis inventors that thrive on destabilising political parties for the gain of no one else but themselves. They move into political parties with the sole aim of securing tickets to contest in elections.
They are not interested in the building of the political parties. They are into the business of politics. You can hardly identify or associate them with fine democratic principles. They carry on like vultures.
They are always in motion; moving from one political party to the other looking for where to grab power, be in high position and make money.
These political harlots corrupt the electoral process, at all cost, in pursuit of their selfish interests. There ends the lesson. Now let’s apply it. I am not guessing when I declare that none of the existing political parties in the country possesses the attributes of ideals, cohesion and strong moral standards, which are important and constitute the strength of political parties.
The recent revolt in the MCP with some of its members calling for a convention points to an internal disintegration. The uncertainty surrounding succession in the DPP and the precarious situation of Vice President Saulosi Chilima also points to power struggles in the DPP as well.
I will not even bother to speak about UDF and PP. They currently are too sold-out to waste time and paper on. Sidik Mia’s joining of the MCP is of more interest and significance because it defines MCP’s desperation in trying to find a foothold in the southern region.
The excitement that has accompanied this entrance of an amoral and clearly avaricious politician whose rallying call as he vies for the MCP vice presidency is that he will make all Malawi Islamic religiously is curious at best and downright idiotic.
Does the MCP believe there is no other way to gain some electoral ground in the south that they are willing to risk contracting the same politically transmitted betrayal that Sidik Mia infected UDF, DPP and most recently Amayi’s PP? What Mia keeps doing in this country’s political sphere is immoral.
That MCP supporters are cheering him on and thinking this is something to taunt the DPP with is not just even more immoral, but demonstrates a total misunderstanding of what Malawi needs to move forward and prosper.
It betrays a desperation to grab power for power’s sake, with no real ideals to guide the execution of that power, and no moral campus to provide some sense of ethics to our politics.
To put it bluntly, friends, Sidik Mia has no moral justification to be the reason anyone celebrates when he knocks on their door. He’s covered in political sewage and no political party can cleanse him. Only the opposite will happen when he joins any party.
He will pollute everyone he comes into contact with. What exactly in Mia’s political track record is worth getting excited over – if you are MCP- or getting worried about if you are DPP? What does this man bring to our politics other than unequalled greed?
Just when I had begun to think MCP were serious about wanting to rescue this country, they go and embrace Mia, and show there true colours. How appalling! What will we call this? Exercising his fundamental human right to freedom of association?
I call it political prostitution. Nothing less. This kind of exercise of one’s fundamental human right to freedom of association is not in the least healthy for the country. It is mercantilist in nature and chokes the building of a virile political space in which new ideas and personalities can emerge.
As for George Chaponda and his arrest, it may be a smokescreen on the part of the Mutharika administration to at once change the narrative from the public discussion of Sidik Mia as well as to somehow look like it is fighting corruption.
Either way, I can only hope that the day has finally dawned when the DPP has come to its senses and turned on the man who has been its pimp, selling its dignity to various wolves and vultures for his own gain without caring about the health or wellbeing of the party or the country.
It is important though for this medicine the DPP is forcing down the throat of its long time pimp, Chaponda, to be real and not just a placebo.
Chaponda clearly broke the law. His trial must be expeditious and his conviction swift. The DPP must understand and realise that only when it refuses to be pimped out of its dignity by the likes of Chaponda and all those other cashgate corruption ministers the president is protecting will it maintain any semblance of integrity worthy of a party wanting to rule this country for another term.
Let me connect these two despicable characters this way: one is a heartless prostitute and the other is a corrupt pimp. Both are undesirable to the welfare of this country.
I once heard Reverend Chakwera, the MCP president, say that his bouncing onto the Malawian political scene signalled the end to Malawi’s “business as usual” approach to politics; that he would not tolerate recycled politicians but rather promote the integration of new blood.
Now here he is welcoming Sidik Mia with much fanfare, totally negating his word and looking like just another power hungry fool! Well, as far as I am concerned, in the first instance, any political leader who welcomes Sidik Mia to his party as though the prostituting Mia is mother Theresa has no right to condemn Mutharika’s leadership and administration.
In the second instance, any leader who, while president, shields the likes of George Chaponda and other corrupt ministers in his cabinet, or even tries to use the arrest of the likes of Chaponda as a smokescreen to hide much larger corruption issues in his government, is no better than Sidik Mia.
In the final analysis, For failing to recognise the dangers to the country of people like Chaponda and Mia, both these leaders belong to the political dust bin. In other words, associating with the prostitute is just as bad as associating with the pimp.