Amid the illusion of free, fair elections, democracy and good journalism, Malawi is heading for secessionist misery, reports Bruce Cohen
‘ASSASSINATION plots galore — ruling party associated with the evil act,” trumpeted the headline in last Saturday’s Malawi News, one of a dozen newspapers that have sprung up to face the challenge of Africa’s newest democracy.
Not a shred of evidence, let alone a coherent allegation, was marshalled to buttress the headline that the new government was all set to murder its political opposition. But with a generosity not often found in the Malawi press, the paper did concede that such behavior was “very strange” for a ruling party that had campaigned on a human rights ticket.
Most newspapers in Malawi are not interested in such mundane matters of fact, evidence, rebuttal or attribution. They find far more satisfaction in using their pages as a rough canvas for raging brushstrokes of rancid insult and wild propaganda, signing their vitriol “A reliable source”.
Parties, politicians — even cabinet ministers — either own directly, or indirectly, most of the newspapers. The country has three dailies, yet their combined circulation cannot be more than 25 000. There are a further dozen weeklies, all eight-page tabloids, all for the same price, all haemorrhaging cash. It’s a media free-for-all of surreal proportions.
There are other Dali-esque features to the political landscape in Malawi, which in May became a “democracy” after more than 30 years of Kamuzu Banda’s geriatric greed. Foreign observers declared the election free and fair with even less conviction than they gave the thumbs-up to South Africa’s ballot a month earlier.
Democracy in Malawi means a country ploughed in narrow furrows of regionalism. The only reason Bakili Muluzi and his UDF party won the election is that the southern region, where Muluzi comes from, happens to be the most populated of the three. None of the regions’ dominant parties, UDF in the south, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in the centre, or the Alliance for Democracy (Aford) in the north, can claim any constituency beyond their regional/ethnic borders.
If democratic elections are meant to be a mobilisation of national sentiment, then Malawi has made a fool of the observers, even worse, of itself. The country is ripe for secessionist misery.
So it’s not really surprising that the bitterest of political foes in the run-up to the elections, Aford and the MCP, have formed an alliance to tackle the southern controlled government. And they are galvanising around Malawi’s only truly national symbol — Kamuzu Banda!
The alliance and the government have become involved in a row over the treatment of ex-president Banda by the UDF government. The government wants Banda to vacate some of his official palaces, and is demanding the former dictator pay back millions of kwacha in rents he received from properties he seized from the state.
The alliance met to discuss the “shameless act of cowardice (of) the government to harass an old man of the Ngwazi’s standing when considering the personal sacrifices he made for the emancipation of his people of this country from colonial yoke … as well as the unrivalled development this country …”
A rich epitaph for the man whose legacy is a country with one of the highest rates of illiteracy in the world, border-to-border poverty and a graveyard of murdered political opponents.
Amazingly, Muluzi’s government — and the press — have hardly begun to probe Banda’s ill-gotten empire, and don’t seem that interested in it either. According to most senior journalists in Malawi, Banda literally owns the country, having simply stolen the wealth of the nation. They point out that the biggest buildings in Blantyre, the food industry and most of the printing and publishing sector is owned by Banda and his cronies.
In Malawi’s fairy tale democracy, its new president is enjoying the magic carpet ride.
Waiting for a plane at Blantyre, I watched as a giant red carpet was rolled out and painstakingly brushed and smoothed on the airport tarmac. No foreign dignitaries were arriving, nor was the president making any state visit overseas. He was taking a short flight up north, albeit to attend a memorial service for the murdered martyr of Malawi politics, Orton Chirwa. There was a large farewell party, and the president tripped down the now dusty carpet hugging his well-wishers before jetting off in his private plane. Another carpet, I was told, was awaiting his arrival.
Red carpets are very popular in Malawi. At the president’s Blantyre palace, with its lush gardens and rectangular ponds, red carpets were abundant, stroked endlessly by fawning domestics.
The president exudes gung-ho charm. He laughed generously when introduced to the editor of a newspaper which a few weeks ago published a picture of him in convict attire. Charges against the newspaper had been dropped just days before.
He chatted affably with the local media, most of whom had never been to the palace (it was Banda’s bunker), some of whom took generous advantage of the presidential bar with triple J&Bs at three in the afternoon.
Generally the president has shown remarkable patience with the newspaper fraternity, with their shoot-from-the-hip, factless journalism.
Many Malawian journalists are embarrassed by the ethical and professional void in their media, and want to see changes. At a conference in Blantyre last week, organised by the International Federation of Journalists, I joined Malawian journalists to thrash out a plan of action for building a democratic, independent media. Four days later we staggered out with a wide-ranging development programme aimed at building a legal framework for free expression, training journalists, establishing a media council, lobbying for reduction in taxes and duties on media, and strengthening the publishers’ association and trade union.
Action may take a little longer.