Dr. DALITSO KABAMBE: A Jew or a Roman?

By Lyson Sibande

Towards the end of 2021, I received a phone call from an unknown caller, whom I later figured had called from outside the country.

The caller told me that they had a list of 8 names of potential presidential candidates for Malawi’s 2025 elections, including the incumbent.

He mentioned the names which came from various political parties. He asked me if I could analyze these candidates and rank them from top to bottom, starting with one with the highest chances of winning, to the one with the least.

Interestingly, Dr. Dalitso Kabambe was one of the names on the list.

I told the caller to give me one week. In 5 days, I submitted to the caller my brief analysis of the candidates in about 3 pages.

What I did was simple. I used the PESTEL Analysis instrument to give the caller the environmental analysis of Malawi’s general terrain on the road to 2025.

Then I used the SWOT Analysis instrument to analyze each and every candidate with respect to the PESTEL factors, and intraparty politics of the given parties.

In my description of the relevant variables, I made it clear that certain variable were very volatile and more likely to change and affect the candidates ranking on the ladder. But then I made predictions on the extent to which the variables would affect each and every candidate.

Now, when I ranked the candidates, Dr. Kabambe was not anywhere near the top. He was not even at the top on the list of the DPP candidates. But he had great Strengths and Opportunities than all of them.

The reason I am sharing this information, has to do with what my instrument had analyzed to be some of the weaknesses of Kabambe’s candidacy. Of greater relevance, were two Weaknesses that I identified and analyzed:

The first one was that he is Lhomwe by tribal affiliation. This might not be a huge limitation for his bidding at party level but it could be a serious limitation for the national votes according to the PESTEL analysis.

The second one was that he did not have grassroots support along the party structures of DPP.

Canvassing and mobilizing for votes within the party structures for the convention, would not be an easy task against other well established politicians in the party like Kondwani Nankhumwa and Bright Msaka who already have loyal supporters along and across the structures.

But at the end of the Times Exclusive interview, Kabambe mentioned that his father is from Ntcheu while his mother is from Thyolo.

This information is new but very crucial to Kabambe’s campaign, if only he understands what that means.

This is a huge advantage to Kabambe on the road to 2025 because it means he is Ngoni from Ntcheu, but then he is Lhomwe from Thyolo.

Here is my advice to Kabambe. Go into the New Testament Bible, and read about Apostle Paul. To give you a hint; you will discover that Apostle Paul had dual citizenship. He was a Jew but also a Roman.

Mind you, according to the Jewish political system of the 1st century AD, Paul was a hardcore politician and a member of parliament.

Learn how Paul used his dual citizenship to maneuver and become a Pharisee and eventually, the greatest and most influential apostle.

Paul knew when to be a Jew and when to be a Roman. That was the secret to his apostolic success in the Christianity movement.