Z ALLAN NTATA’S UNCOMMON SENSE: WHERE IS PETER MUTHARIKA?

It is always a curious, if suspicious, occurrence when a defendant or a respondent in court proceedings decides to stay away from court for the entire duration of the hearings, opting for his lawyers to make arguments before the court without him.

In criminal trials, the silence of the accused is justified by the reasoning that he is presumed innocent, and that the burden of proving that he is guilty of the crimes charged rests on the prosecution. The accused, according to law, does not have to say anything to prove his innocence if the prosecutions fails to show to the court that he indeed needs to offer something in his defence – that he has a case to answer.

I doubt that this presumption of innocence should work in the same way when it comes to hearings regarding the irregularity of a presidential election in the constitutional court, especially when one of the supposed respondents is on record as having agreed that indeed the elections were marred with irregularities.

It is therefore a rather curious occurrence indeed that Peter Mutharika has opted to send to court to testify in his defense two witnesses whose proximity to him in as much as the election was concerned is very questionable. I have been rather interested in the fact that in his defence in the ongoing elections case, Peter Mutharika has opted to be absent. I am even more stupefied by the fact that to testify on his behalf, he has opted to send two witnesses whose standing in the case is as DPP members.

Reflecting upon this, I was directed to the thought that again as
always, this is in keeping with the Peter Mutharika modus operandi.

Of all Malawian Presidents, President Peter Mutharika, it seems, lacks the relevant decisiveness and subject-matter expertise for the job of president. Tragically, Mutharika has failed to live up to the high billing attributed to him because of his outstanding academic qualifications and being a brother of the performer, late Bingu wa Mutharika. What Peter Mutharika has managed to demonstrate having been given the opportunity to be president is an entrenchment of his historical laziness and gullible pliability.

In his six years as president, Mutharika has been an absentee president who relishes overseas jaunts and ostrich tactics instead of finding solutions to crippling socio-economic and political problems facing Malawi. There is absolutely no Malawian who can claim to know exactly what Peter Mutharika is doing or will do as president when presented with various governance and leadership challenges. His plans, policies, and programs remain hazy and fuzzy in a country whose future is as uncertain and hopeless as its 20 million citizens.

Just as passengers in an aircraft are reassured by the words of the pilot when the plane is going through turbulence, and passengers in a ship yearn to hear and are pacified by the voice of the captain when a ship is going through a storm, when a nation is going through various governance issues, the public listens out for the reassuring voice of the leadership, the president comforting them that the problems are well in hand and are under control, and that there is actually something being done to solve them. Unfortunately, in the case of Mutharika, this never comes.

Where is Mutharika when so-called “Malawians of Asian origin” are busy buying out government schools and encroaching on government land?

Where is Mutharika when his very own first lady, his personal staff and members of his cabinet are embroiled in corrupt land grabbing deals to the point of having a principal secretary’s life being threatened with guns?

Where is Peter Mutharika, I say, when the country is burning up in the flames of various protests, with running battles happening between police and civilians resulting in fatalities on both sides?

If presidential success is determined by winning re-election, Mutharika is unsuccessful because he failed to convince Malawians to give him another four years in office. The only people whom he convinced were those from the Lhomwe belt, and I dare say their vote was not based on his leadership successes but simply on the basis of tribalism and patronage. With due respect to our electoral laws and the “first past the post” system of electing our presidents, the hard truth that Mutharika needs to know is that 70 per cent of Malawians do not believe that he should be president of this republic. Back in 2014, Mutharika came into office promising change and development. He has delivered neither. On the contrary, under his watch, corruption has been entrenched, with he, the president himself getting embroiled in the MK145 million corruption scandal along with the Asian Zamir Karim, and economic decline has worsened.

It is now well-established that Mutharika prefers to stay away and go missing because he lacks vision and direction. Peter Mutharika is a bad communicator who has never communicated his approach effectively on how he will tackle Malawi’s problems. As the nation spirals into economic depression and anarchy, Peter Mutharika remains stoic, aloof, distant, insensitive, missing in action, and always abdicates his responsibilities by sending minions to speak for him.

It appears to me that Mutharika has never grasped the grave threat the political crisis created by the botched elections represents to the nation. This is evident in his inept political maneuvering and frequent outbursts of entitlement and aggression. This causes his political judgment to be questionable and his leadership to be a matter of serious doubt. As he displays little political acumen on issues of national importance, remains absent when decisive political solutions are required and stays away from hard decisions when governance travesties are exposed in his cabinet and in his household, what emerges is a damning verdict of an absentee president – physically and mentally.

If Peter Mutharika is really convinced that his electoral victory was genuine and well-deserved, why is he scared of appearing and asserting the same in court? Why does he send DPP members to shield and speak for him when DPP is not even a respondent in the matter?

And while all this is happening, where is he? What is he doing?