BY JOSHUA CHISA MBELE
Here is what was wrong:
(a) The Contents were made confidential. The main clauses should have been deposited and or trusted with common people that elect the president in Malawi. Those rallies should have been used to sell (sale) the clauses.
(b) MCP Executives erred in committing themselves to such agreement without authorisation from its Constituent Braches. Decisions of MCP are made at the Convention. The Executives lacked people’s mandate. You can’t jump that process.
(c) To concretize the Agreement, UTM Members should have swelled the executive positions of MCP. In simpler language, UTM should have been assimilated into MCP to secure SKC presidency. I said this few weeks after Tonse government was installed. I could see the road head.
(d) Vows renewal. Along the way the Clauses would have been tested and retested by taking them to branches to reignite the spirit. That’s political marketing or re-legitimisation. The opposite was happening. Suspicions and mistrusts deepened between MCP and UTM. Mumakhalira kutukwanana. By implication, the Agreement lapsed.
(e) Common sense would have prevailed. No party would hand over presidency to another party. Just think literally. That would have been the reason for tight integration into one movement.
Common denominator is this: Politicians don’t keep agreements. Don’t keep promises. Muluzi disappointed his UDF Executives and opted for an outsider Bingu. Bingu after being elected, he ran away with the ball disappointing the very person that had propped him. Such is politics.
To bank on UTM ~MCP Agreement is therefore an error of judgement.
Zikomo Kwambiri
