Policy stability, alliances and coalitions: Unravelling the disposition of political inter-organisational systems towards self-immolation: What the Tonse Alliance Government in Malawi can learn from the irretrievable breakdown of the Kenyan National Alliance Rainbow Coalition

Introduction

Alliances, whether military or political, tend to exhibit some strange inclination towards self-immolation, a house falling upon itself, Samson-like. After World War II, for example, the great camaraderie among the Allies―Britain, France, the United States, and Russia―split down the middle, giving rise to the Cold War, that epic four-decade confrontation, a proxy war between the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) with the United States as her patron, and Warsaw Pact with the Soviet Union as the master conductor. Not long ago here in Africa, Zaire, to be precise, an alliance that toppled the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko soon found itself breaking into factions, leading to a terrible disaster that is failing to go or heal. As for politics in Africa, history of political alliances on the Continent presents a bleak reality of how that such an initiative tends to live for a while before quickly proceeding unto some premature end. Malawi is currently ruled by an alliance of nine political parties following its historic victory at the June 23 (2020) Fresh Presidential Election. This amalgam calls itself Tonse Alliance, literally meaning one intended to serve every Malawian. In this discussion, I wish to draw some parallel between this Alliance and the famous National Alliance Rainbow Coalition or NARC of Kenya where a political alliance that successfully removed the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) from power at the 2002 polls soon found itself at war with itself. The central question here is what it is that Malawi can learn from NARC’s mistakes so we do not blunder ourselves unto the same crisis. First, I will justify why the subject of alliance is important in our public policy and politics at this moment. Then I will consider the concept of alliance and why or how such marriages come into being. A discussion on the position of our alliance in Malawi will follow, to be followed by a section that compares our situation with that of Kenya after the 2002 elections. The penultimate section discusses reasons alliances fail. Finally, I give some suggestions on how best we can run our affairs to avoid what befell NARC in Kenya.

Background, and the wisdom for discussing the subject of alliance

On June 23, 2020, Malawi held a fresh presidential election under the supervision of a new Electoral Commission. On June 27, an alliance of 9 opposition political parties with Dr Lazarus Chakwera as their torch-bearer came into power after defeating the incumbent, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party-United Democratic Front Alliance. This nine-party alliance christened itself Tonse, a vernacular term, meaning “for all of us”. The Alliance partners and their supporters have hailed this “commonwealth” as the best arrangement for our politics, for it finally did the job―removing Professor Mutharika from power for a new Malawi. Important to express is the fact that the Tonse arrangement was forged on an understanding whose contents very few or none at all, or perhaps only the President―Dr Lazarus Chakwera―and his Vice―Dr Saulos Chilima―know. Despite this, followers or supporters of respective parties in the Alliance have hailed the change, arguing the mission was accomplished, the old man, Professor Mutharika, was sent packing, a problem solved.

 

Recently, two main parties in this Alliance: The Malawi Congress Party from where the President comes, and the United Transformation Movement of the Vice President, the Right-Honourable Dr Saulos Chilima came face to face at a number of by-elections. In the majority of those, things ended well. However, in one Constituency in Karonga, the race became a cause for worry. For me, it revealed one important fact: the Tonse leadership does have some good job to do, to realign their strategies, to avoid policy instability and even serious violence at the 2025 Presidential Vote.

 

By electoral violence I mean “any random or organized act that seeks to determine, delay, or otherwise influence an electoral process through threat, verbal intimidation, hate speech, disinformation, physical assault, forced ‘protection’, blackmail, destruction of property, or assassination” (Orji & Uzodi, 2012, p. 10, citing Fischer 2002, p. 8).

 

Many would consider a subject like this unhealthy, after all we are a good four years to the next elections (though soon we should be conducting some seven parliamentary by-elections). Such people could read some ill-motive in a debate of this nature. Well, consider carefully the following observation by the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, the world’s largest online community and repository of electoral knowledge:

The electoral cycle appreciates elections as continuous processes rather than isolated events. At the most general level, the electoral cycle is divided in three main periods: the pre-electoral period, the electoral period, and the post-electoral period. Notably, the electoral cycle has no fixed starting or ending points, which is also true for the three periods and for the segments within the cycle. In theory, it may be said that one cycle ends when another begins. However, some post-electoral period activities may still be ongoing when activities related to the subsequent electoral cycle commence (available at www.aceproject.org/electoral-adv)

Put simply, the activities for the next elections must begin soon after the just-ended elections. One reason for this is that “reform of the legal and institutional electoral framework should draw on the evaluation of the previous electoral processes. Such evaluation is conducted in the post-election period to identify disputed, deficient or ambiguous legal provisions and acts which have a negative impact on the conduct of the previous electoral processes” (Alihodžić, 2013, p. 12).

 

I should also point out that, “Management of political risk requires a dynamic worldview that includes a combination of flexibility, creativity, and demonstrated expert knowledge” (Bremmer & Keat, 2010, p. 2). Put variously, if we are to avert some future chaos in our politics, we need to take some strategic approach to issues, addressing the problems proactively, that is, before they produce a crisis. What all this means is that, if our democracy is to work, we must take time to identify, analyse and mitigate political risks way before they hatch into political crises.

 

Someone might argue that we are doing fine on this; after all hasn't the international community attested to our job well done? That is a wonderful observation but I wish to draw your attention to the fact that sometimes the international community does adopt some really strange haste, praising some flash of brilliance in dragging democracies. This is understandable; after all, is democracy producing what it has always purported to? What I wish to suggest by this is that democracy has never been a perfect system of government, but “a valuable fair procedure, and is, of the fair procedures, imperfectly best at yielding the best outcomes” (Mackie, 2009, p. 129). In other words, despite its weaknesses, it remains the one-eyed king among the blind. No wonder, in Kenya, even after the 2008 post-election violence, 73% of the people (in 2011), 65% (in 2014) and 67% (in 2016) submit that democracy is preferable to any other kind of government (Findings from Afrobarometer Round 7 survey in Kenya, 2016, p. 7).

 

In an effort to glorify and hoist the positive that this fair procedure called democracy produces at times, at times the international community picks and chooses, glossing over some important matters. In some cases, this can affect public policy in future. In Kenya, for example, following the alternation of government at the 2002 elections, the international community went to town claiming democracy had worked for the Kenyans. On its part, the European Union Election Observation Mission for those elections had praised Kenya, writing home that the “elections showed that Kenya has truly become a multi-party democracy…” (European Union Election Observation Mission Kenya, 2003, p. 4) (emphasis mine.) However, the events on the ground were soon to lend a lie to all that.

 

In Malawi, the official version of the June 2020 election maintains that “the repeat election was held in a largely peaceful environment, and the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) did not receive any complaints following the announcement of the result” (International IDEA, and the Electoral Commissions Forum for SADC Countries, 2020, p. 6). Whether this means there were no complaints or mechanisms for the same were not adequately available is the question. I am inclined to take a position that statements like these can very easily make us overlook important issues that would require addressing to ensure smooth next elections. This is why scholars ought to take time to ensure matters that ought to be addressed in our electoral processes are fully addressed for smooth next (subsequent) elections. This can only happen when such scholars assume an independent stance on these issues.

 

Such a thorough scrutiny by some independent eyes is important because when a people move forward without comprehensively dealing with the question of certainty in their institutions or electoral processes, a nation risks what Owuor (2019) describes as inconclusive electoral cycle. According to Owuor, “the inability to remedy and cure shortcomings and challenges that are prevalent in the major phases of an electoral process, and importing the same to the new electoral cycle, aptly defines the term inconclusive electoral cycle” (p. 3). Malawians at every level ought to discuss thoroughly matters of elections now or risk inconclusive electoral cycle. As a citizen, I am contributing towards that.

 

I find it necessary that such a debate should flow from the lower horizon of society. This is because when decisions on democracy are made from the top without input of the governed, a nation risks what is described as elitist democracy.

 

Elitist democracy refers to “an unhealthy situation where the powerful, well connected, and intolerant have become extremely well adept at using those institutions and procedures to further concentrate wealth and power among themselves” (Nylen, 2003, p. 4). Nylen argues that in such a state, the people’s relevance is reduced to periodic casting of votes for people already chosen for them by the rich and the powerful. Nylen considers this unhealthy for it culminates in civic disengagement manifested by “low and declining voter turnouts, increasing distrust in democratic politicians and processes, and declining levels of participation in organized civil society” (p. 7). Nylen adds that, in some cases, this problem can manifest itself through increased index of voter alienation―the sum of abstentions, blank and invalid votes during national elections (p. 14). The 2020 elections produced some elements of this problem yet no one seems interested in analysing them for important answers to improve ourselves for better electoral performance in future. I thought, as a citizen, I could do this without waiting for the West to do it for me.

 

Malawi is in the midst of perfecting or correcting her electoral framework. We are doing this because our electoral system was inherited without significant alteration from the colonial administration (Reynolds, Reilly & Ellis, 2005, p. 15). Between 2014 and 2020, Malawi had an opportunity to alter this electoral system through bottom-up reforms. In my opinion, we missed that opportunity. Even now, the changes that have happened so far have all been from the top, kind of elitist reform for elitist democracy. I feel this an issue Malawians must discuss so as to arrive at some understanding to perfect this institution we inherited wholesale from our colonial master.

 

Another important reason why I thought I should debate on this is that there are times when our leaders must receive independent opinion on issues lest the wine of power should work to their destruction. Often, leaders want to hear only that which they know will not depart markedly from their predisposed positions. Anything to the contrary, they go ballistic.

 

To ensure that our leaders receive balanced opinions, there should be some mechanisms in our democracy that should resemble red teaming. Red teaming is a practice where a team of experts or analysts rigorously punch holes into an otherwise perfect plan, policy, system or assumption by taking a completely opposing stance with the intention to build a robust system and outcomes. The practice is popular in military, cybersecurity, and business sectors, sectors where pursuit of perfection matters.

 

In cybersecurity, for example, a company can engage outsiders to penetrate the company’s own network to assess its ability to withstand outside attack. In the military, a well-laid out plan can be subjected to doubt or criticism by an independent body of experts or highly trained military personnel to assess its efficiency or robustness. The importance of taking an adversarial stance on policies or matters of governance is to identify shortfalls way before such policies or plans are executed.

 

Where a leadership is deprived of independent reasoning on matters, the result is always chaos. Ludwig (2002) tells a story of how one Nigerian leader had a premonition of how his life was going to end in Lagos, but went ahead with his decision anyway. According to Ludwig, all this was contained in a letter Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the man who was to become the first federal prime minister of Nigeria, had written to his friend, Sir Bryan, a British official.

 

Ludwig (2002) writes that in the letter, Tafawa Balewa was asking for advice whether to run for prime minister. Ludwig writes that in the letter Tafawa Balewa had expressed fear for his life in Lagos. However, Ludwig argues that Tafawa Balewa had written the letter to this friend, knowing pretty well the latter was going to recommend his going to Lagos. When Tafawa Balewa was given the nature of response he wanted, he felt ‘compelled’ to go. The sad news is that, just “as he had ominously suggested in his letter, he only would be able to leave Lagos in a coffin. That happened when he was killed in a military coup” (p. 15). The lesson is simple: always go for a balanced opinion even where it goes against the grain in your reasoning. Nowhere is this crucial than in matters of governance and public policy.

 

Finally, as I am writing this, there are seven constituencies where the Malawi Electoral Commission is scheduled to conduct by-elections. Three of which fell vacant after the High Court nullified parliamentary elections results for 2019 in those constituencies, while four of which became vacant after respective MPs had succumbed to Covid-19. Obviously the Tonse Alliance partners (and of course, the opposition Democratic Progress Party and the United Democratic Front) will battle it out in these constituencies. If the Tonse Alliance partners cannot engage in some vote pooling or some compromise, the outcome might be the beginning of great frictions, worse than those we witnessed in Karonga. Perhaps, these fears necessitate that we should debate these issues to facilitate a smooth electoral process.

 

Perhaps I should mention as a footnote that debate on matters like these is pertinent to help develop a critical mass prepared to analyse and assess Malawi’s democracy. It should be mentioned that the best people to assess Malawi’s democracy are those who know this country’s culture, traditions and aspirations better. This is in line with International IDEA which opines that “only those who know a country’s culture, traditions and aspirations are properly qualified to assess its democracy” (Beetham, Carvalho, Landman, & Weir, 2008, p. 20). You and I are the people who know this country to the bone.

The concept of alliance and coalitions

The terms ‘alliances’, ‘coalitions’ and ‘partnerships’ are often used synonymously to refer to “an interorganizational (mixed) system that has become semi-autonomous but maintains accountability and feedback loops to its organizations of origin” (Roberts, 2004, p. 5). Thus, an important characteristic or feature of any alliance is the degree to which the various constituents in this new organisation are able to report to respective mother organisations or parties from which the alliance partners originate. In other words, there must be some alignment between what this new organisation does or seeks to achieve and the values espoused by respective parent parties from which the new organisation was born or created.

 

The alignment is important to ensure the values of respective partners are respected in the amalgam. The definition of a coalition government in Albala and Reniu (2018) seems to explain this. According to Albala and Reniu, a coalition government is “first and foremost the result of a negotiation between two or more parties, and requires sufficient strength and mutual commitment on a broad list of topics at different levels (mostly at the executive and legislative levels)” (p. 3). The two authors add that “the collectivisation of these outcomes proceeds from particular goals expressed as shared positive or negative values, common ambitions for power, policy orientations, and the goal to be re-elected” (p. 3).

 

According to Lembani (2014) citing Leftwich and Laws (2010), alliances and coalitions are a universal occurrence whenever a people sense that attainment of certain social, political or economic aspirations would be a chimera if they pursued them as individual organisations, groups or society. Take it this way, alliances or coalitions make it possible for our societies to achieve virtues and values they would otherwise never achieve individually. The Tonse Alliance is in government thanks to a realisation that only by coming together would they be able to send the DPP-UDF Coalition packing. It seems our politicians have always known this truth, perhaps this explains why Malawi has had nearly 10 alliances or coalitions since 1994 alone.

 

Lembani (2014) citing Wyatt (1999) offers an interesting facet to the discussion when he distinguishes the concepts of alliance from coalition. According to Wyatt (see Lembani, 2014), an alliance is formed prior to elections to “maximize” votes, while a coalition refers to a post-election formation of political parties in Parliament or government based on their respective electoral outcomes. I adopt this definition, that is, alliance as a pre-election arrangement, and coalition as a post-election amalgam. However, for convenience sake, I perceive the Tonse Alliance arrangement today not as a coalition. Thus, the term Tonse Alliance is preferable even though this nine-party alliance is now in government and therefore should have assumed the tag “coalition”.

 

Perhaps also important is to note that formation of a coalition as a transorganisational system (TS) goes through important phases although, often, such phases are glossed over in the course of achieving the immediate goal, that of forming an alliance to gain power. Roberts (2004) adopts the following development framework from Thomas G. Cummings (1984):

 

Phase 1: Determining the need for a TS and exploring the problem set

What intractable problems are surfacing in our environment that we cannot resolve by ourselves?

 

Phase 2: Motivation to collaborate

We decide to act in concert with others because of the perceived benefits of collaborative action.

 

Phase 3: Member identification and selection

Who cares about the problem and is willing to join our process?

 

Phase 4: Collaborative planning

Should a TS be created? If so, what are its vision and action strategies?

 

Phase 5: Building an organization

How do we organize the vision and action into structure, leadership, communication, policies, and procedures?

 

Phase 6: Evaluation

How is the TS performing in terms of performance outcomes, quality of interaction, and member satisfaction?

 

These phases are crucial because they ensure those entrusted with negotiations towards the formation of such alliances are alive to crucial steps in the formation to avoid the creation of some Frankenstein monster, that creature which, created by Frankenstein himself, ended up destroying him after it failed to fit in human society. I think this knowledge is also crucial to determine whether alliances formed in Africa get their anchor from the lowest levels of the horizon.

 

Important to mention should be that there are at least four generations of coalition theories (Albala, 2018). That discussion is beyond the scope of this discussion.

How some alliances in Africa have fared recently―Examples from the DRC and The Gambia

In January 2019, Mr Félix Tshisekedi, son to Late Étienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, the man who had frequently tussled with Zaire’s dictator, Late Mobutu Sese Seko, assumed power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This followed a coalition of two coalitions, one led by Mr Tshisekedi himself, and the other led by former president, Joseph Kabila. Tshisekedi’s Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS) together with Vital Kamerhe’s Union pour la Nation Congolaise (UNC), constituting Cap pour le Changement (CACH) entered into a coalition with another coalition, Front Commun pour le Congo (FCC) led by former president, Kabila.

 

According to Diatta (2020), the Tshisekedi-Kabila deal “allowed Kabila to retain power by ensuring his inclusion in key governance decisions through direct consultation with Kabila. (Kabila-led) FCC also chose the Prime Minister and some key ministers in addition to controlling the National Assembly” (para 7).

 

It hasn’t worked. Currently Tshisekedi is seeking new allies to help free himself from the shackles of Kabila’s Front Commun pour le Congo. And Mr Kabila and the FCC have criticised him for failing to respect the terms of the agreement.

 

It is important to note that Mr Tshisekedi had entered into this alliance after a disputed election which observers from the Catholic Conférence Épiscopale Nationale du Congo say was stolen from the rightful winner, Martin Fayulu. According to Diatta, the deal was made after the presidential election and eight days before the country’s electoral commission had announced the results. Diatta adds that the deal granted total immunity to Kabila and his cohort, and also established a Tshisekedi-Kabila co-management of the DRC. One interesting term in this deal was that the UDPS was to back a presidential candidate from Kabila’s FCC in 2023.

 

As I speak, this (Tshisekedi-Kabila) alliance is in ruins. Parliament there has since elected Christophe Mboso as Speaker, three weeks after the MPs had ousted a pro-Kabila appointee. In January, Mr Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunkamba, Kabila’s ally, had been forced to resign as Prime Minister (and, according to Africanews, Tshisekedi has since appointed Mr Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, 43, as DRC’s new Prime Minister, see “Tshisekedi names Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde new DRC prime minister”, available at www.africanews.com). Before that, Mr Tshisekedi had pardoned two men implicated in the assassination of Joseph Kabila’s father, Laurent Kabila.

 

Africanews further observes that Mr Tshisekedi will now be hoping to bolster the presence of his party in parliament by winning over members of Kabila’s coalition. One could say of Tshisekedi-Kabila alliance: RIP―requiescat in pace. Whether this will eventually translate into violence in 2023 is a subject for another day, but the potential for violence is there.

 

To West Africa, the Gambia.

 

In the Gambia, a coalition formed based on an informal agreement in 2016 saw Adama Barrow elected President that year. The alliance comprised seven opposition parties who backed him for the seat. At his inauguration (on January 19, 2017), Mr Barrow promised to stay in power for only three years after which he would call for elections. In other words, his was to be a transitional government to pave the way for some popular election. Barrow repudiated all this, and come end 2019, he formed the National People’s Party in readiness for the elections slated for December 4 this year.

 

According to Soumaré (2020), before forming the National People’s Party, Barrow had broken with the United Democratic Party, and in March 2019, “dismissed the party leader and historical opponent, Oussainou Darboe, from his post as Vice-President” (para 17). Ironically, writes, Soumaré, Darboe had praised Barrow as the leader the Gambia had been waiting for, saying: “I really believe that Adama Barrow will give Gambians what they want. He is on a mission for our party and for the opposition coalition. We trust him, he will make a good president” (para 18).

 

Another coalition dead.

 

Lessons from Kenya

This discussion draws lessons from the events of Kenya from 2002 when the NARC came to power, to 2008 (following the December 2007 elections) when former alliance partners fell on each other in a bloody post-election violence in the country. This section therefore centres on NARC and Kenya.

 

In Kenya in December 2002, a grouping of opposition leaders under the umbrella brand of National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC), sent Kenya African National Union (KANU) together with its candidate (Uhuru Kenyatta) packing after a victory many, both within and without, hailed as historic. It was so described for some three reasons as Nasong’o and Murunga (2007) summarise:

For the first time, the incumbent Kenya African National Union (KANU) was defeated after four decades in power. Second, again for the first time in the country’s history, a president retired from office. Third, the electoral defeat of KANU occurred against the backdrop of a united opposition under the aegis of the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC), a reality that promised to usher in a new political era of dialogue, consensus and power sharing (p. 9).

 

Comparison with Malawi’s situation

In Kenya, President Daniel arap Moi (president since 1979) was barred by the country’s Constitution from standing at the 2002 elections. Moi selected Uhuru Kenyatta, son to late President Jomo Kenyatta, to represent the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU). When KANU merged with the National Democratic Party (NDP), the opposition felt threatened and destined to lose the December 2002 elections, Kenya’s eighth post-independence elections.

 

According to Elischer (2013), this threat moved Charity Ngilu to ponder of entering into an alliance with Kibaki and Wamalwa. Elischer writes that the three formed the National Alliance Kenya (NAK). Elischer adds that this encouraged other smaller parties to join and so, soon, fourteen smaller opposition parties joined the NAK, which was officially constituted as a new party in August 2002. A few weeks later, on September 18, 2002, NAK’s internal nomination panel announced Kibaki as presidential nominee, Wamalwa as his running mate, and Ngilu as the future prime minister. According to Elischer, this post (of the prime minister) was NAK’s creation as proposal for a constitutional amendment it was gearing itself to implement.

 

Moi’s selection of Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor infuriated top politicians in the party. An internal rebellion occurred, a group of top KANU politicians and cabinet ministers took a stand against this. They soon formed a grouping―the Rainbow Coalition. When the Rainbow Coalition joined NAK, the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (NARC) was born. The NAK terms had to be revised.

 

The terms of the agreement were drawn by what was described as the NARC Summit―the Alliance’s eight-member chief decision-making body together with their memorandum of understanding. According to Nasong’o and Murunga (2007), citing Murunga and Nasong’o (2006), the NARC MoU “committed the coalition partners to conclude the constitutional review process within 100 days of their assumption of power, create new institutions of governance, strengthen existing ones and devolve some of the overwhelming powers of the presidency” (p. 9). In some way, the NARC MoU resembles that by the Tonse Alliance in this country for, though we are ignorant of the contents of the said MoU, the President, Dr Chakwera, has been going places, telling Malawians he intends to reduce presidential powers. In Malawi’s case, however, the alliance partners had entrusted Dr Chakwera and Dr Chilima to discuss the terms of the Agreement in the event they won the elections.

 

How did the NARC Alliance (in Kenya) fare after taking over power?

 

Since the Elections took part end December 2002, the victorious NARC President, Mwai Kibaki (of the Kikuyu tribe), assumed power the following year, that is, 2003. That very year, Ndegwa (2003) as cited in Nasong’o and Murunga (2007), made a very strange prediction which quickly came to pass. According to Nasong’o and Murunga, Ndegwa had predicted that “after the first series of major correctives, attempts to redesign the state will stall. Efforts to correct the institutionalised propensity for overcentralisation will be abandoned” (p. 9).

 

Strangely, Kibaki, he had promised to be in power only for one term, soon abandoned the MoU, and even more strange, he began to flirt with members of the very party the NARC had defeated―KANU. To assume more support, Kibaki began to flick ethnic switches, something that proved to Kenyans the new leadership was no different from those of Moi and Jommo Kenyatta.

 

And how is the situation in Malawi a few months after the ascendancy to power of the Tonse Alliance? Is the Alliance as intact as it was at its time of formation?

 

Although it should be naïve of me to pass my judgement by merely dwelling on a handful of examples, what happened in the by-elections in Karonga could give us some insight of the level of oxygen saturation in this commonwealth. One article “Malawi: MEC warns to call off by-election in Karonga Central over continued violence” (available at www.allafrica.com/stories) seems to carry some important insight.

 

First, the article quotes the Chairperson of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Dr Chifundo Kachale, as warning that the Commission would call off the by-election if violent incidents that characterised campaign period there persisted.

 

This by-election was slated for November 10, 2020, and had seen some of the worst violence this side of the June 2020 Fresh Presidential Election as attests another article “Violence in Karonga Central Constituency ahead of November by-election” by Adams Undaninge of Zodiak Malawi. The article says that, “political violence has again shown its ugly face ahead of the November by-election as reports indicate that some people have allegedly been hacked in Karonga Central Constituency by unknown criminals with party flags uprooted.” Although no party names are named, Karonga District Supervisory Team attributed the violence to two main Tonse Alliance partners―Malawi Congress Party of Dr Lazarus Chakwera, and the UTM of his Vice (see “Karonga Parliamentary by-election campaign turn violent” available at www.malawifreedomnetwork.com). The Supervisory Team observed that the two parties were fueling political violence ahead of the November 10 by-election.

 

Further evidence suggests that the violence had gone beyond the voting exercise itself. For example, according to Kalimira (2020) in “Fracas in Karonga after by-election”, unknown people had destroyed houses of three people belonging to Malawi Congress Party in Karonga Central Constituency. The article writes the police had since confirmed the story. In the end, Frank Mwenefumbo, the losing UTM candidate to Malawi Congress Party’s Leonard Mwalwanda, questioned the credibility of that election.

 

Perhaps before I move to something different, let me present something over some remarks by a top Alliance Member, Malawi Congress Party Second Deputy President, Mr Harry Mkandawire, who openly suggested that a loan-disbursing organisation in the country, the Malawi Enterprise Development Fund, was going to give priority to MCP supporters when disbursing loans for the simple reason that the President, Dr Chakwera, is MCP (see “MCP’s Harry Mkandawire scathing remarks against UTM draw public criticism” by Watipaso Mzungu, dated September 6, 2020, available at www.nyasatimes.com). Mr Mkandawire made the remarks right in Karonga Central Constituency during the campaign period for the 10 November by-election.

 

In October, just a month before the by-election, Mr Mkandawire was at it again, this time forthright, stating that the fact that MCP commands the majority in Parliament means that the others “really do not matter” (see “Harry Mkandawire touts MCP supremacy in Tonse Alliance, slurs at ‘tiny parties with less than 10 MPs” by Pius Nyondo, available at www.nyasatimes.com, dated October 5, 2020).

 

The article quotes Mkandawire verbatim when he asks rhetorically: “When we say we are in government people should understand. Currently, MCP has more than 60 MPs in Parliament. What can a party with three or four MPs do?” Take note that UTM of Vice-President Dr Saulos Chilima has only 4 MPs in our unicameral National Assembly.

 

Four years to elections, these differences might look small and therefore not worthy discussing let alone resolving, but historical institutionalism warns against such recklessness. I feel it has become even more pertinent now that soon these partners will be meeting again in seven good constituencies for by-elections.

 

I wish to suggest some strategies these partners should adopt in order not to repeat what we witnessed recently in Karonga. However, for these suggestions to carry some weight, I should first cite a few examples on reasons alliances fail.

Why alliances fail

There are a number of reasons alliances fail; the first falls on the motive for forming such an alliance. On this, history teaches us that all alliances, including military alliances, forged on wrong motive always run aground. The campaign the Nazi (under Adolf Hitler) and Imperial Japan launched had ended in more disaster on their part (the Axis) because they constituted a machinery of evil. O’Neill (1999, p. 7), presents the motive, writing,

Japan intended to enslave the peoples of East and Southeast Asia, whom the Japanese regarded as racially inferior. The Nazis also viewed most of the people of Europe as racially inferior to the Aryan, or Nordic, “race,” of which they believed Germans to be members. The Nazi plan was to rule Europe, at the very least, and to exterminate not only Jews, but Gypsies and millions of Slavs. The wars against Germany and Japan were, in this sense, wars against particularly murderous forms of racism. They were also wars fought to save democracy and freedom.

Alliances also fail when the leadership fails to balance contested interests in the leadership fabric. In Zaire, on May 17, 1997, Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire or ADFL, led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, brought to an end Mobutu Sese Seko’s thirty-two-year brutal rule on this vast African country the size of Western Europe. The optimism was high for a new way of doing politics. According to Ngolet (2011), “This powershift was expected to end the corruption and economic mismanagement that had become synonymous with Mobutu’s rule” (p. 3). However, Ngolet observes that the reality began to prove otherwise. In his words:

But the Congolese people and the international community were quickly disappointed by Kabila’s lack of political skills. His handling of the investigation surrounding the massacre of the Hutu refugees, his refusal to introduce democratic reforms, his political marginalisation of his Tutsi allies, and his failure to diffuse ethnic tensions in the two Kivu provinces that border Rwanda caused war to reignite in the Democratic Republic of Congo (p. 3).

Usually, such failure originates from lack of transparency at the formation or configuration of such an alliance. In the case of the ADFL, for example, it is said that a secret document carrying completely different terms had accompanied the main document at the formation of the ADFL (Ngolet, 2011).

 

The ADFL was formed in Lemera, South Kivu province, on October 18, 1996. According to Ngolet (2011), the ADFL was formed by four political parties and that this inter-organisation was dominated by the Tutsi-Banyamulenge. It is said that the said secret document guaranteed the Tutsis of Congolese citizenship as well as full control of a territory in the Kivus (p. 11). Upon seizure of power from Mobutu, “the Tutsi hegemony (dominance) was not well received by the rest of the Zairians” (p. 12) to the extent that Kabila (a Luba) was being “accused by the rest of the Congolese as being a puppet of the Tutsis and foreigners” (p. 12). Ngolet writes that soon, Kabila began to sideline the ADFL, pushing his own party, Parti de la Révolution Populaire (PRP), into power. In the course, Ngolet observes, Kabila also recruited more people of the Lubakat tribe (his paternal tribe, not original members of the alliance), sidelining the Tutsis more. This also meant incensing the main ADFL backers―Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola, Pasteur Bizimungu of Rwanda, and Pierre Buyoya of Burundi.

 

In 1998, after the Lubakata had consolidated their grip on power in Kabila’s government, Kabila had the audacity to order Rwandan soldiers to leave the DRC. By then, Kabila had built close military ties with Zimbabwe.

 

When the final draft of the Constitution proposed that a Congolese citizen was one who had at least one parent member of one of the tribes of the Congo at the time of independence, the Tutsis, felt they were being denied full Congolese citizenship. They therefore felt obliged to fight to overthrow a regime they helped put in place (Ngolet, 2011, p. 17). This marked a new chapter of breakdown of relations between Kabila and his former allies.

 

Stressing the importance of transparency for trust and survival of a political or military alliance, Mansoor and Murray (2016), write that the British and the Americans had fared well during the Second World War because they cherished sharing of technological and military intelligence. The advantage was that such knowledge was quickly perfected for some military breakthrough. According to Mansoor and Murray, such was never the case with the Axis members where the Germans managed their alliances with no openness and coordination of purpose.

 

One could see that exclusion is one tactic those intent to dishonour alliances employ. In most cases, such exclusionary tactics involve ethnic labels. Although not on alliance per se, a classic example of an incumbent who had made use of this tactic to bar his most challenging rival from the electoral process is Frederick Chiluba of Zambia.

 

In 1996, Chiluba orchestrated a campaign that disqualified former President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia on the pretext that Kaunda’s parents had migrated from Nyasaland (now Malawi) when both countries were British colonies. “Because his parents were not indigenous to Zambia, he was prohibited from running for a presidential seat that he had occupied for 27 years (1964–1991). Interestingly, opponents of the then incumbent president, Frederick Chiluba, argued that he too should be disqualified, since his father was allegedly Congolese” (Nzongola-Ntalaja, 2017, p. 247).

 

Nzongola-Ntalaja (2017) also writes of a similar event about former Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, who had served as head of government under the venerable Félix Houphouët-Boigny. According to Nzongola-Ntalaja, “the incumbent regimes excluded Ouattara from the presidential race not because he was not a citizen or had dual nationality but on the grounds that he had in the past “availed himself of another nationality” by carrying a diplomatic passport from Burkina Faso” (p. 247).

 

According to Nzongola-Ntalaja (2017), the moves had serious repercussions upon the population. For example, “state repression of Kaunda’s supporters and the general climate of violence resulted in numerous deaths, including that of a son of the former president” (p. 248). In the case of Côte d’Ivoire, “Ouattara’s exclusion led to the boycott of presidential elections by his political party and to acts of ethnic cleansing on both sides of the political/religious divide between southerners and northerners and between Christians and Muslims” (p. 248).

 

The sad thing about alliances is that at their death they tend to create a huge chaos and human damage, often marking a beginning of a long chapter of hardship to the poor. Lezhnev (2016), citing International Rescue Committee (2007), presents a grim account of the DRC today when she writes that:

it is estimated that 5.4 million people have died and hundreds of thousands have been subjected to sexual violence in conflict during the rule of Joseph Kabila and that of his father, Laurent Kabila, with the active participation of neighboring states in the killing and looting inside Congo, particularly Rwanda and Uganda. This is in addition to structural violence and repression. (p. 1)

And according to Ayittey (2005), by that time, “… the looting of diamonds, gold, and timber [had] left the 53 million Congolese among the poorest people in the world” (p. 13). It is also said that the conflict in the DRC has led to loss of lives at a scale not comparable with any since World War II (Lezhnez, 2016, p. 3). Ironically, the DRC is paradise of sorts to the ruling elites and others. According to Lezhnev, the DRC “is an efficient state for ruling elites and their commercial partners who seek to extract or traffic resources at the expense of Congo’s development” (p. 1). Thus, all the poverty, corruption and human damage in the DRC has always weighed heavily on the poor, helpless Congolese man and woman.

 

There is also some evidence that “when coalitions break down due to conflict between parties, subsequent coalitions between those parties are less likely” (Nyblade, 2013, p. 25, citing Tavits, 2008). Perhaps this explains why the falling among coalition partners in Kenya produced such monumental damage.

 

And on Kenya, an important question is why the NARC collapsed.

 

One strange behaviour of alliances is that they “tend to weaken as well when the moment of victory approaches” (Mansoor & Murray, 2016, p. 7). The two authors give the example of how the Grand Alliance (America, Britain, France and Russia) began to crumble at the very hour the Axis members (Germany and her allies) were crumbling, when victory in Europe approached. Thus, “the Grand Alliance did break apart soon after the war ended as a result of the inability of its members to agree on a desired postwar order” (Stoler, 2016, p. 136).

 

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2009), “the understanding between Odinga and Kibaki was that in return for Odinga’s support for Kibaki’s presidency, Kibaki would support passage of a constitutional draft that would devolve power away from the presidency and create a new and fully empowered position of Prime Minister, which Odinga would assume” (See “Background on the post-election crisis in Kenya” para 5, available at www.csis.org/blogs).

 

Branch (2011, p. 249) puts it succinctly, writing:

After extended private discussions, Odinga and Kibaki struck a deal. The Nyeri man would stand as the undisputed presidential candidate of a united opposition coalition, but would serve only one term. Ongoing discussions about constitutional reform would, it was agreed, be hurried to a conclusion within three months, in order to create a new post of prime minister for Odinga. Odinga’s supporters were also promised half the seats in cabinet. With that, the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) was formed.

The results were sweet music to NARC, “Kibaki won nearly two-thirds of the votes cast in the presidential election and NARC’s constituent parties took 132 of the 222 seats in parliament” (Branch, 2011, p. 250). Kibaki attended the swearing ceremony still on wheelchair following a car crash before the elections. Kibaki, now the third President of Kenya, promised his people that NARC had come to stay, that it was soon to be a single party, and that it was the people’s hope both within and without. His Vice was Michael Wamalwa (who was to die in a London hospital in August 2003, most likely of an AIDS-related condition (p. 252).

 

When “a wave of redundancies swept through the judiciary and senior ranks of the civil service in the name of anti-corruption” (Branch, 2011, p. 251), Kenya felt once again a new rebirth. Despite this, the Kalenjin tribe of former President Moi branded the efforts vindictive by a Kikuyu President. In a strange twist of events, however, “behind the scenes, the newly appointed ministers and their supporters [had] quickly eased themselves into positions at the top of corruption networks” (p. 253). By July, 2004, Edward Clay, the British High Commissioner in the country, was to describe the looting by the new government as “gigantic looting spree” (p. 253).

 

As if all this was not enough, Kibaki, a Kikuyu, went flat out, surrounding himself with his tribesmen from Kenya’s Central Province, some of them with seriously compromised human rights history. According to Biegon (2008), Kibaki considered his presidency an opportunity to restore the loss from being outside power. It should be stated that after the death (in 1978) of Jommo Kenyatta (a Kikuyu), the leadership had been transferred to Moi (a Kalenjin) in 1979. Biegon therefore writes that Kibaki embarked on “the process of channeling resources to the GEMA community so as to ‘regain the ground lost during the years of being outsiders’” (p. 39). Kibaki, thus, obstinately refused to dilute his powers, “governing on the basis of mistrust, suspicions and bad blood among the coalition partners” (Nyong’o, 2017, p. 224).

 

Why Kibaki grew this powerful can be explained by the fact that he had used money rather than principles to build NARC. According to Arriola (2013), p. 3,

What Kibaki did have in 2002 was money. To overcome his electoral disadvantages, he pursued a pecuniary coalition-building strategy. His campaign advisors, a group of prominent businessmen and former parastatal directors, were able to raise funds among the Kenyan business community. That money was then used to secure public endorsements from politicians representing the country’s major ethnic groups, beginning with local notables and moving up to national actors. Opposition politicians were, in effect, paid to leverage their own reputations in mobilizing their coethnics’ votes on behalf of Kibaki . This pecuniary strategy ultimately enabled Kibaki to engineer the electoral coordination of Kenya’s once-fragmented opposition.

Since NARC was a commonwealth built on money rather than values of democracy, it was an accident waiting to happen. What it meant was that there was a certain form of interest that stood waiting to benefit from his presidency once elected. This section of interest had to be repaid for its financial support, the very root that leads to state capture.

 

A classic example of state capture is what happened in South Africa during the reign of Jacob Zuma as President. Merchant (2016) citing Gernetzky (2016) writes that at one time “senior members of the governing party alleged that they had been offered positions in the country’s cabinet, not by the President (Mr Zuma), but by a family central to Zuma’s patronage networks―the Guptas” (p. 44). It was as if in exchange for positions in the Gupta family’s complex business empire that straddles industries from information technology to coal and uranium mines, President Zuma used his powers as President to ensure the granting of highly lucrative tenders went to these companies (owned by the Guptas, a family which had come to South Africa from India only in 1993).

 

In Malawi at the change to multiparty politics, our politicians also built a pecuniary coalition to defeat Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda. This is why those who had stood on clean politics failed against those who spoke through money. Bakili Muluzi was a powerful businessman with inside knowledge of the then Dr Banda’s ruling one party Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Arriola (2013) citing Posner (1995), makes an interesting observation on this, writing that “the country’s main opposition party was ‘literally born in the Chamber of Commerce’ with the backing of business facilitating electoral coordination in an otherwise ethnically fragmented polity” (p. 48).

 

The same had been the case during the fight for independence when the Nyasaland African Congress (later Malawi Congress Party) only became a formidable force once the business community began funding it. According to Arriola (2013, p. 48) citing Cohen (2008), “prior to independence, the main nationalist party, the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), was a weak political organization incapable of competing against a better funded rival supported by mining interests and white settlers” (p. 48). Citing Rotberg (1965), Arriola adds that the problem with this weak funding was that each branch was raising its own funds, spending them according to local preferences. Arriola writes that the effect of this was that “the NAC was unable to coordinate mass support despite the prevalence of latent anticolonial grievances” (p. 48). Citing McCracken (1998) and Power (2010), Arriola demonstrates that the successor to NAC―the Malawi Congress Party―turned a formidable national force under Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda “only after being bankrolled by the colony’s indigenous entrepreneurs. It was the resources provided by the founders of the African Chamber of Commerce that enabled the MCP to successfully coordinate political support” (p. 48).

 

In Malawi the Tonse Alliance carries some character of a pecuniary coalition. For example, one of the most important figures in this commonwealth has been Alhaji Muhammad Sidik Mia (recently succumbed to Covid-19). Mia who was the Vice-President of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), the leading partner (from which President Dr Lazarus Chakwera comes) was a powerful businessman. Rumour has it that Mia had generously bankrolled the MCP, perhaps helping it secure power through leading of this Alliance.

 

All this demonstrates that the nature of politics everywhere is the same―politics not about making good policies but about party funding and favours. Writing of America on this, Schweizer (2013, p. 8), remarks:

Politics in modern America has become a lucrative business, an industry that has less to do with policy and a lot more to do with accessing money and favors … bills and regulations are often introduced not to effect policy change, but as vehicles for shaking down people for those money and favors. Indeed, the motive on both sides (Republicans and Democrats) often has nothing to do with creating a “correct” policy, but instead is often about maximizing profits.

Recently, Potter and Penniman (2016) have almost ridiculed America on this, observing: “Our grand 240-year-old project of self-government has been derailed, replaced by a coin-operated system that mainly favors those who can pay to play” (p. 8).

 

Such was the case in Kenya where Kibaki who led the NARC, a coalition born of a pecuniary womb, soon “amended the draft that came out of the Constitutional Review Conference, with the effect that the provisions for the office of the premier were purged from the document” (Biegon, 2008, p. 39). The National Alliance Rainbow Coalition was becoming history.

 

When the campaign for the (December 27) 2007 elections began, Kenya was split into sharp ethnic blocs. This time Odinga was candidate for the opposition Orange Democratic Movement while his nemesis, Kibaki, was leading the Party of National Unity.

 

According to Brownsell (2013) (see “Kenya: What went wrong in 2007?” available at www.aljazeera.com) Odinga had appeared to be heading for victory. In fact, and this is according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2009, para 8), he was reportedly winning by 370,000 votes with 90 percent of the constituencies reporting. But come the night of December 30 (2007), and this was “behind closed doors, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, Samuel Kivuitu, declared Kibaki (the incumbent) the winner by some 230,000 votes, though a few days later, he admitted he ‘did not know; who had won’” (Brownsell, 2013, para 10). It is said that less than an hour after Kivuitu had declared Kibaki winner, Kibaki was sworn in by the Chief Justice on the lawns of State House in the company of only a handful of loyalists (Sjögren, Oloo & Patel, 2017, p. 265).

 

According to 2017 Kenya General and Presidential Elections 2017 Final Report (p. 12), the postelection violence that erupted there lasted seven weeks and claimed more than 1,000 lives. It was to take former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, through an African Union-sponsored mediation effort led by Tanzanian President, Jakaya Kikwete, to salvage some power-sharing accord in February 2008. In this brokered power-sharing arrangement, Odinga (a Luo) was brought into government in the position of prime minister with Kibaki (a Kikuyu) as President. The arrangement which led to the signing of the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, establishing the Grand Coalition Government, also saw Kalonzo Musyoka appointed vice-president (Kadima & Owuor, 2014, p. 160).

 

Two issues should particularly challenge the Kenyans on the 2007 postelection violence, namely that they could turn on one another all because they could not agree on the best type of democracy for their country, and that outsiders―the Panel of Eminent Africans―would come and stitch something for the Kenyans, a great people that they are.

 

Desmond Tutu (1999) tells a horrid tale of how April 27, 1994 was about to go down the drain in South Africa until “mercifully, through the mediation of a somewhat mysterious Kenyan, Chief [Mangosuthu] Buthelezi was persuaded to abandon his boycott, with its chilling prospect of a blood bath” (p. 8). This mysterious Kenyan was Washington Owumu.

 

The short and breadth of this story is that on April 27, 1994, South Africa was going to witness what Tutu (1999) describes as “this epoch-making event, a watershed occurrence in the history of South Africa” (p. 8). South Africa was going to vote after the dismantling of Apartheid. The twist happened in that at the eleventh hour, “Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), playing a major role, had threatened to stay out of the election” (p. 8). According to Tutu, they were “all bracing ourselves for the most awful bloodletting, especially in the IFP stronghold of KwaZulu/Natal, where the rivalry between the IFP and Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) was a gory affair that had already cost innumerable lives with the level of political intolerance shockingly high” (p. 8). It was to take this Kenyan to persuade Buthelezi to reverse his decision and finally take part in the election.

 

In short, on many issues, Kenyans are leaders on the African Continent. That they could let democracy slip through their fingers occurred to me as a shock. However, it is important to note here that the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition failed or ended in chaos because the partners had failed to respect the notion of consensus. In the words of Biegon (2008), “Kenya’s political history is one of exclusion and the 2007 presidential elections and its aftermath should be seen in this light. The election was a process that was defined by history even as it was one that sought to define the future” (p. 39). Thus, political alliances also fail because the general environment in which they are formed in Africa are inherently devoid of political integration mostly because the citizenry feel alienated or excluded from the socio-cultural and political processes and decisions.

 

Political integration is defined as the problem of “developing a political culture and of inducing commitment to it” (Okafor, 2006, p. 40, citing Ake, 1967). Since in most African countries this void is filled by the civil society organisations, the fact that such institutions get swallowed up in the euphoria of alliances spells doom.

 

In Kenya, for example, very few would play the checks and balances against the Kibaki regime because the civil society podium had virtually shrunk following the coming to power of the NARC. Branch (2011, p. 256) writes that,

By 2002, figures like Wangari Maathai, Paul Muite, Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o and Kiraitu Murungi, who had played such important roles in the push to end Moi’s authoritarian rule, sat in parliament rather than outside the political system. [Besides], leading figures from civil society, for example, Githongo, flocked into the civil service. This brain drain weakened the quality of civil society leadership in the aftermath of 2002, but also restrained criticism of the government from many of the once forthright critics of human rights abuses who now sat in parliament.

In my opinion, Malawi, at the moment, is suffering this deprivation. Fire-breathing human rights activists have been absorbed into various elite structures from which they can never bark at all. The critical media has since become tame, coming out only occasionally, and only on fringe issues. I can never say of the courts, one must speak no ill of men and women in robes.

 

Alliances also fail where there is no clear direction on vote pooling. According to Adeney and Sáez (2005) citing Horowitz (1991), vote pooling refers to “a pre-election alliance where political parties agree to cooperate in securing votes by not putting up candidates in a certain constituency against other members of the alliance” (p. 3).

 

Lastly, alliances fail because different leaders in the alliance seek to fulfill divergent ideologies. This results in policy instability. When leaders in an alliance begin to pursue agendas not agreed upon at the formation, the alliance risks policy instability which eventually affects national public policy.

 

Policy instability refers to “radical policy changes, that is, acts in which political leaders choose a policy which is contradictory to policies that they have committed to during elections and formed coalitions on their basis” (Rosenthal, 2012, p. 1). In Kenya, for example, Mwai Kibaki abandoned both the Prime Minister project and the power-reducing dream.

Have alliances or coalitions helped better shape the Malawi public policy?

According to Lembani (2014), alliances or coalitions have had some positive impact upon our politics. For example, “after Chihana was appointed second vice-president in 1996, President Muluzi was freely able to hold public meetings in the AFORD stronghold of the North and indicate that the North, the Centre (from which first Vice-President Justin Malewezi came) and the South (Muluzi’s homeground), were jointly running government affairs” (p. 138). This was a typical case of inclusiveness breeding more political tolerance and political integration.

 

One can however deduce from Lembani (2014) that these alliances and coalitions have generally generated more devastation and instability for our politics and public policy. Thus, the problems alliances and coalitions have created in our politics and public policy seem to, by far, outweigh the few positives scholars cite on the topic. On this, Lembani (2014, p. 138) writes:

However, nearly all subsequent alliances and coalitions either deterred or undermined democratic consolidation, further fragmented the party system and created an increasing public aversion to alliances and coalitions. For example, most undemocratic constitutional amendments were introduced and swiftly passed during periods of pro-government legislative coalitions, with absolute disregard for resolute objections from NGOs, media, civic groups and the general public.

This however should not mean that the Tonse Alliance is bound to fail; what it means is that the Tonse Alliance should study the problems that had littered all previous alliances and coalitions and, in time, avert them to avoid a repeat of history. I have compiled the following suggestions or recommendations for this very purpose.

Recommendations

The Tonse Alliance must realign itself to use Open Government as its base-stand. A few weeks ago, Dr Chikosa Silungwe, our Attorney General, made my day when he openly said he was pro-Open Government.

 

Writing on why corruption has persisted in Kenya, Hope, Sr (2017), notes that “where corruption persists, as it does in Kenya, it is an indication of things (such as governance institutions) falling apart” (p. 63). The solution therefore lies in strengthening governance institutions, and there is no better starting point than instituting and espousing principles of Open Government. In the fashion of Hope Sr, this is the only way Malawi can resuscitate her basic institutions that underpin and support the rule of law and good governance, institutions that have been deliberately undermined or neglected to the point where they can no longer uphold the rule of law or act in the best interests of the nation.

 

According to Rose and Peiffer (2019), “The theory of open governance is that making transparent what happens in the corridors of power will reduce formal and informal corruption” (p. x). The logic is that “public officials will avoid seeking bribes for fear of being subject to legal sanctions, and politicians will avoid behaving badly for fear of being indicted in the media and convicted in the court of public opinion” (p. x).

 

There is documented evidence that coalition governments are a breeding ground for corruption in Africa. According to University of Oxford (2015), a research project it conducted demonstrates that “coalition politics is a double-edged sword, promoting political inclusion and decisive government at the expense of exacerbating corruption” (p. 1). The study interviewed 300 legislators from Benin, Kenya and Malawi to explore the consequences of coalitional politics for governmental efficacy and democratic consolidation.

 

The reason, so says Oxford University (2015), is that coalition governments encourage neo-patrimonialism, appeasement, or exchange of favours. This affects governance in that it tends to increase parliamentary corruption and undermines legislative scrutiny.

 

Another reason why corruption increases in coalition governments is that such arrangements tend to be driven by some air of uncertainty. For example, Kontopolous and Perotti (1999) and Franzese (2002) as cited in Saalfeld (2013, p. 63), argue that “the partisan fractionalization in coalitions fosters higher public spending” (p. 63). Bejar (2011) in Saalfeld (2013), further presents that “the short duration and short time horizon of coalition governments in office give incentives to leaders of governing coalitions to increase government expenditure” (Saalfeld, p. 63). It is as if to say that individual members therein feel it important to make hay while the sun shines. And hay they make through corruption.

 

All this stresses the need for Open Government to give ordinary citizens and civil society groups an opportunity to scrutinise how those in power are using their authority and to hold them accountable if they appear to be abusing it (Rose & Peiffer, 2021, p. 145).

 

It should not be difficult for Malawi to embark on Open Government, as we would not be starting from the scratch. This I am saying because at the state level, we (Malawi) had embarked on this path only two years after the Open Government Initiative was launched (for it was launched in September 2011 by eight nations which included the United States and South Africa).

 

According to Ranchod (2014), in May 2013, Malawi was among the six African nations at the first ever Open Government Partnership meeting in Mombasa, Kenya (p. 1). At the time, Malawi, together with South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Liberia and Ghana, had just expressed interest to join Open Government Partnership, a peer review mechanism in which a country subjects itself to local and international scrutiny on governance issues centring on four pillars of openness, transparency accountability, responsiveness and citizen participation. According to Piotrowski (2017), Open Government Partnership also “includes collaboration policies” (p. 155) and as a multinational initiative, it has become a “major administrative reform” (p. 155).

 

Following this move, “institutionally, Malawi has established an OGP Steering Committee, which includes government departments, members of civil society, and Members of Parliament . . . (and) with regards to a lead agency, the OGP is placed within the Office of the President and Cabinet” (Razzano, 2016, p. 19). Why this important institution is hardly spoken of in this country (when it is within the Office of the President and Cabinet) is beyond me.

 

Again, why is the concept of Open Government important for any democracy? Well, democracy itself requires that we should be suspicious of what our leaders (politicians) do or how they conduct themselves. Put simply, democracy is a system of government which “points towards both the idea of a collective act and the notion that such an act is often subjected to contestation” (Sanela, 2016, p. 425). This implies that at the heart of democracy is “greater suspicion of power” (Schostak, 2016, p. 4) as a form of critique (Teles, 2016, p. 27) and efforts to achieve consensus from such diversity.

 

If our politics is to serve its purpose in this day and age, we must, as a matter of urgency, embark on a genuine move to open our institutions both to our citizenry and to the international community. There is no better starting point than implementing the right to information (RTI) law in Malawi. This is important because right to information is “a key mechanism for meaningful citizen participation in governance (and) although the concept of Open Government extends beyond RTI, it is difficult to conceive of a strong Open Government system without effective RTI legislation . . . and RTI is recognized by international human rights courts and other bodies as a fundamental human right” (Centre for Law and Democracy, 2012, p. 1).

 

Robust RTI should be supported by deliberate mechanisms to enhance citizen participation and collaboration. A recent research in the United States demonstrated that there is a tendency in Open Government to emphasise transparency and information exchange at the expense of participation and collaboration (Hansson, Belkacem, & Ekenberg, 2015, p. 540).

 

Open Government will help open up every institution in this country―individual politicians and their connection to private businesses, bureaucrats or the public sector, and even the private sector itself. Through Open Government, for example, our politicians will be forced to disclose their earnings to the public (and not only to some public office), how they travel, what they receive, what they get when they travel, and how many such travels they make in say, a month, etc. Such a sunshine society will also ensure everything about every tender and expenditure in this country is made public (unless there is a very good security reason for them not to do so).

 

Currently, citizens are questioning how some officials both politicians and bureaucrats spent some 6.2 billion Malawi Kwacha meant to help in the fight against Covid-19 in the country. I bet we would never have these issues if we had put in place a robust Open Government mechanism in our institutions and among our officials. For example, Open Government would have enabled the people to track every activity and expenditure since that would have been made available for scrutiny without even the people asking for it. In this way, problems would have been detected right at the point of commission or even before they were committed.

 

In Peru as I write the citizenry are revolted following revelations that hundreds of people there were secretly vaccinated against Covid-19 even before the country had officially rolled out its vaccination programme. According to Rebaza and McCluskey of CNN (see “Hundreds of people were secretly vaccinated in Peru before official rollout, says President” available at www.edition.cnn.com) the people there are infuriated because more than 480 people, including several ministers and a former president, were secretly vaccinated against Covid-19 even before the country’s official vaccination campaign began. Thus, these officials had used money and their positions to benefit from an arrangement the people knew nothing about. If there was a strong system of Open Government there, this should not have happened.

 

The Peru story perhaps reveals why an open society must start with the politicians (the executive). The executive leading by example, the bureaucrats (though part of the executive) will know the leadership means business. Parliament itself must also open itself to the public (I know this programme already started in Malawi by former Speaker, Right-Honourable Richard Msowoya, but it must be made robust to reflect maximum requirements of openness and transparency regimes). Finally, it should reach the judiciary. I personally do not share in assertions that there should be a section of society whose salary or about whose information (as long as is important for public interest) we must never know. This is why Rose and Peiffer (2019), argue that “to detect both capital-intensive and grass-roots bribery a freedom of information law ought to cover all public institutions making policy and delivering public services. These include central government leaders and ministries; parliament; the courts and their equivalent institutions at regional and local levels” (p. 147). Open Government ensures everything is open, nothing (so long as it hovers over public interest or public value) is done behind closed door (unless there is a very good security reason for not doing so).

 

I personally believe that in matters of corruption, the top-bottom approach is crucial because change (integrity) must start from the top and trickle down to the lower horizons of government. In all other matters, however, reforms must be bottom-up, robust but incremental. I am saying this because most laws target the bureaucrats or public servants, leaving the politician scot-free. For example, what is the logic in a law that discourages handouts to the poor but has no sting against contributions to elected officeholders by large enterprises and multi-millionaires. Which is a bigger problem?

 

Open Government could be especially necessary whenever Government embarks on materialist projects (as opposed to post-materialist projects or policies). Materialist policies have a redistributive or welfare orientation (Erickson & Laycock, 2002, p. 304) as opposed to preoccupations with contemporary politics also known as ‘new politics’. In short, materialist policies or projects are those where a lot of money will change hands, where government will spend immensely. A good example is a road construction project or a welfare arrangement, for example, funds meant to address a particular problem, a case in point, Covid-19. This is why Fellowes, Gray and Lowery (2006) describe materialist bills as those pieces of proposed legislation whose purposes are “associated with older materially-oriented policies such as those concerned with taxes and transportation” (p. 35).

 

Post-materialist policies or projects, on the other hand, are those programmes and decisions leaning on struggles for recognition, which, according to Erickson and Laycock (2002) include “more equal access to social, economic and political opportunity structures for historically disadvantaged, non-class groups, especially women and visible minorities” (p. 302). Fellowes, Gray and Lowery cite the environment and civil rights bills as examples of post-materialist policies (p. 35). In other words, examples of post-materialist projects include those aiming to increase the people’s enjoyment of rights.

 

By nature, governments tend to embark on more materialist programmes than post-materialist ones, and there are two explanations for this. First, materialist programmes, for example, roads, bridges, cash transfers and mining, are examples of visible projects, something that aid good publicity. In other words, these are projects people can see and count and therefore use at elections to re-elect a government. The second explanation is that such policies tend to give politicians money, and that is where corruption thrives. Even in Parliament, there is no shortage of support for materialist bills. Open Government is especially necessary to track progress of such materialist authorisationtions or programmes.

 

It should be pointed out that getting hold of information about what government or politicians do in the corridors of power will not necessarily mean ending corruption. There must be mechanisms to actually hold politicians to account. In South Africa currently, a crisis is brewing. There, former President Jacob Zuma is refusing to appear before a commission of inquiry into corruption during his time in office as President. Reacting to this, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has since said the Commission will make an application to the Constitutional Court, seeking an order that the former President is guilty of contempt of court. On his part, Mr Zuma, defiant, has remarked that he will be waiting for that arrest.

 

According to Winning (2021), (see “South Africa’s Zuma could be jailed after no-show at corruption inquiry” available at www.uk.news.yahoo.com/south-africa) Zuma had walked out of the Inquiry in November last year without permission, a situation that had forced the Inquiry’s officials to approach the Constitutional Court. The Court is said to have ordered Mr Zuma to appear before it, the Inquiry. Mr Zuma says he won’t even if it means sending him to prison.

 

Julius Malema, leader of Economic Freedom Fighters, has since accused some judges of bias and of believing that they are above the law. However, the country’s Justice and Correctional Services Minister, Ronald Lamola, has warned that Mr Zuma is setting a very bad precedent. Lomola has since assured South Africa that the rule of law will prevail in the country.

 

There are fears this might lead to violence and instability in the country especially following the position Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA has taken on the matter. The Veterans Association has vowed to defend Zuma to prevent any arrest at whatever cost. Carl Niehaus, an ally of Zuma and spokesman for the MKMVA has said arresting Zuma could cause political instability in South Africa. MKMVA members are already said to be at Nkandla, Zuma’s homestead, to thwart that impending arrest. And already some politicians are weighing in to diffuse the tension. Top six members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) are said to be preparing to meet Mr Zuma over this deadlock.

 

So what is the lesson in all this? Two, I think. The first is that sometimes some people grow so powerful because of politics and history, law itself grows timid to tackle them. At that point, the principle of equality before the law fails dismally. If Mr Zuma and his ally continue along this path, I am not sure this Inquiry will achieve its objectives.

 

The second lesson is that perception of the judiciary should concern us all. I am inclined to share Lomola’s fears that Mr Zuma could be setting a very bad precedent for his country because people will begin to believe that it is possible for the rich to simply fold themselves and refuse to listen to orders of the court. However, sometimes how courts present themselves on some matters seems to suggest more of taking the cue from politicians than of an independent institution for an oppressed people’s rest.

 

In Uganda, the loser in the recent elections there, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (Bobi Wine) has openly lamented the perceived compromised nature of the Court he has petitioned to annul the elections. According to Mugisha (see “We never wanted to go to court for the petition―Bobi Wine” available at www.nilepost.co.ug) Bobi Wine has expressed displeasure that the Chief Justice and another Justice, Mike Chibita, are part and parcel of the activities of the court in this case. Bobi Wine cites their history as a cause for worry.

 

According to Bobi Wine, history puts these two close to the respondent, President Yoweri Museveni. Bobi Wine concern is that the Chief Justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo (appointed by Museveni on August 20, 2020) “was former minister in Museveni’s government. He also represented Museveni as his lawyer in the petition filed by Dr Besigye in 2001. Justice Mike Chibita is Museveni’s former private secretary for 7 years” (para 20).

 

Bobi Wine thus warns that “if the said justices refuse to step out of our case and the court continues to deny us the opportunity to file evidence, we shall be left with no option but withdraw that petition and take it back to the court of the people” (para 21). I pray that all should end in the formal setting of the Supreme Court.

 

Apart from setting up a robust Open Government mechanism, alliances also ought to set their priorities right. This is important to win over the people’s support and hence fortify legitimation. In the case of Malawi, this could be important because the people would consider such scores results from the Tonse Alliance policies.

 

In a typical example of misplaced priorities, in June 2005, the Government of Malawi reported it planned to purchase a US $545,000 limousine for the incumbent at the time, Professor Bingu wa Mutharika (Late). Strangely, the President had reported that nearly 1.7 million Malawians would need food assistance that year. Interestingly, when these reports were hitting the media, our Government was already knee-deep in the procurement process for these road monsters. According to “Malawi: Gvt purchases expensive presidential vehicle despite food shortages” (available at www.reliefweb.int/report/malawi, posted June 16, 2005), the Minister for Information at the time, Ken Lipenga, confessed the Government had already paid $180,000 of the cost for that Maybach.

 

The same man, Professor Bingu wa Mutharika, had also promised the people he would introduce cable cars (cabins) for them to enjoy our mountains. The idea was not bad, but the timing perhaps. In a country where blackouts are the order of the day, introducing electric trains or cable cars would be courting disaster, for the people would often find themselves stuck in the air for hours on end, electricity gone. If he had started by working on bringing sanity to our electricity grid, the idea would have been marvelous, but even then, of what benefit would such a facility be to the poor masses who walk on foot to and fro the produce market, points that give them their daily survival?

 

We had set our priorities wrong, a common problem among African leaders. The following examples will demonstrate how deep-rooted the problem of misplaced priorities is among African governments.

 

Ayittey (2005) writes about what a newspaper in New Zealand had reported about Nigeria, which, it said, was planning to launch its own space programme. Ayittey observes that all this was merely an attempt to prove to the world that Nigeria was not “backward”.

 

One would think it was some joke but Ayittey (2005) citing The Economist dated September 13, 2003, p. 43) reports that Nigeria finally launched her first satellite, ironically, built by a British firm for $13 million (and where is the wisdom here when the money is going back West?). According to Ayittey, the Nigerian government claimed the initiative was bound to enhance the quality of life of people and alleviate poverty. Ayittey wonders how exactly that initiative was going to achieve these objectives. One Nigerian engineering professor, Sam Chukwujekwu, even wondered whether that money wouldn’t be better spent on education. According to Professor Chukwujekwu, as cited in The Economist, “You can't leap-frog from a mud foundation.” The lesson in this is that we must start by addressing first issues first.

 

In Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire, France is said to have taken advantage of Mobutu’s “penchant for prestige projects such as the International Trade Centre of Zaire, a thirteen station satellite communications network and the broadcasting facilities of the Voice of Zaire in Kinshasa; all financed with loans guaranteed by the French government” (Bechtolsheimer, 2012, p. 181). In fact, in 1977, Mobutu had launched a space programme, not a bad idea, but I doubt the feasibility of such a programme where the general populace was unable to afford basic amenities. In politics, like in public policy, priority matters.

 

Such priority ought to be negotiated among the alliance partners, otherwise if it is the type that borders on some ideologies that contrast sharply with the values of the new inter-organisation, the alliance risks failure.

 

Discussing why Nazi Germany ended up in defeat despite its early victories, Mansoor and Murray (2016) write that “Hitler’s ideology and megalomania made it impossible for successful strategic cooperation among the Axis powers, which, combined with the failure of their leaders to understand the nature of their opponents, proved to be a disastrous mix in the long run in spite of considerable operational successes up through 1941” (p. 10).

 

The Tonse Alliance is lucky in that they have a blueprint in the name of Malawi Vision 2063 to guide them as far as development and public policy is concerned. In this way, partners should desist from emphasising agendas that do not advance the general welfare of the people of Malawi as stipulated in Vision 2063.

 

All this means that if the Tonse Alliance is to fare well, it must work collectively to address matters that matter to the poor 80% of the population. If I were a leader, I could prioritise agriculture, health, and education. Honestly, the Tonse Government seems to be doing well on agriculture with their input programme. Forget the various shortfalls encountered so far. In public policy, you always take those lessons on board to improve on the programme.

 

For me, agriculture will make the poor villager a happy citizen able to contribute to national development. Health will ensure he or she engages himself or herself in productive work, for example, agriculture. Finally, good education will help him or her understand improved methods while affording him or her the opportunity to improve his or her family through sending his or her children and even himself or herself to school. Industrialisation and innovation should then be used to improve these sectors through adding value, or even making work and accessing health, markets, etc., easier. Thus, industralisation and innovation just as is the case with tourism, should be integrated. For example, tourism would enhance good roads which would also help improve access to markets by our farmers. Tourism would also enhance care for our forests, thereby strengthening agriculture efforts in terms of climate change, soil fertility, name it.

 

African countries forget all these and go on some spending spree, buying expensive vehicles, name it. This happens because African presidents are so much obsessed with positional leadership (rather than relational leadership).

 

Elgie (2018), defines a positional leader as “someone who occupies a top-level position of formal responsibility … people in directly or indirectly elected positions of political authority, such as presidents, prime ministers, ministers, first ministers of devolved governments, presidents of regional councils, mayors, and so on” (p. 34). Such leaders want everything about them to exude and reveal authority―suits emblazoned with their names and faces, living in mansions that compete with the White House, immersing themselves in hedonism and party and celebrity lives. Such leaders can convince you to buy local when they themselves abhor local. They would persuade you to buy a fabric made in Ndirande when they buy from Dubai. Late Frederick Chiluba, the former President of Zambia, fits the bill here, for he had this taste for designer suits.

 

A relational leader, on the other hand, seeks to truly connect with his or her people, identifying with them, leading them by example. Nelson Mandela and Thomas Sankara (minus the coup facet) are best examples of relational leaders in Africa. Describing himself, Sankara (1985, p. 191) as cited in Murrey (2018, p. 79), writes:

… Other leaders have had the chance to immerse themselves in the daily lives of the people. That’s where they find the necessary reserves of energy. They know that by making such-and-such a decision they’ll be able to solve such-and-such a problem, and that the solution they’ve found is going to help thousands, even millions of people. They have a perfect grasp of the question without having studied it in a sociology department. This changes your perception of things …

A relational leader therefore is a true servant leader, committed to improving the socio-cultural and economic status of his or her people. He or she cries with his people, including the marginalised of society. This cry is seen in his or her deportment or manner of life: humble, few inexpensive vehicles, restricted travel, working with the people, treating the people as equals, name it. Such leaders also know that true revolution is never possible, for example, without the emancipation of our women (Sankara, 1990).

 

It is also important for our government to appreciate that democracy can never be defined by elections alone. Institutions in Malawi tend to give the impression that elections define democracy, a phenomenon called electoral fundamentalism.

 

According to Van Reybrouck (2013), electoral fundamentalism “is an unshakeable belief in the idea that democracy is inconceivable without elections and elections are a necessary and fundamental precondition when speaking of democracy. Electoral fundamentalists refuse to regard elections as a means of taking part in democracy, seeing them instead as an end in themselves, as a holy doctrine with an intrinsic, inalienable value” (p. 29). Our understanding of this will mean that our approach to democracy will be that robust. In this way, we shall be able to perfect all areas that serve democracy better, for example, good political leadership, effective and efficient democratic institutions, rule of law, name it. I am afraid to say that Malawi currently thinks that elections means democracy, a very dangerous way of looking at issues.

 

This again is important: as much as possible, reject all policies―implicit or explicit―which exclude and marginalise others on whatever basis. If Africa is in trouble today it is all thanks to marginalisation and exclusionary policies by politicians who have chosen to use the pawn of ethnicity to rise to power.

 

In Kenya, in the Tana Delta, it is said that the Oromo or Orma (pastoralists) and Pokomo (farmers) had had a long history of peaceful co-existence until 1991 when Kenya’s politics moved to multipartyism (Etefa, 2019). According to Etefa, this does not mean that there had not been tensions between them prior to 1991 but that they always dealt with them, eventually successfully living together for centuries, sharing pasture and farmland along the Tana River.

 

Historically, however, the area had been neglected by the British. They, for example, limited the movements of the Oromo and Pokomo, who were forced to stay in their assigned reserves, against their mode of production, which necessitates movement. This continued well into the late colonial era, and little or no development efforts were implemented. In the early 1990s, politics seized on this marginalisation to bring these two ethnic groups to a head, with devastating consequences.

 

On the Darfur conflict, Sudan, some researchers have attributed the problem there to ethnic hatred between Arabs or those who identify themselves as Arabs (the Abbala camel keepers and the Baggara cattle keepers) and non-Arabs (Africans: the Fur from which “Darfur” comes, the Zaghawa, Masalit, and Berti). Others, for example, Hassan (2010), have held that the Darfur crisis is imbedded in the environment and competition over scarce resources (p. 21). However, Mohamed Salih (2005) submits that this fails to present the whole picture, something he observes has been occasioned by researchers’ neglect (in their analysis) of the role history has played in this. It should be pointed out that the majority of the non-Arabs (Africans) in question are Moslems too.

 

According to Salih (2005), before the 17th century, the region known today as Darfur (it exceeds the size of France, and is the size of the US state of Texas) comprised African states with well-developed administrative structures which enabled them to collect tax and maintain peace. Even after Islam came in the 17th century, the various tribes in Darfur had lived together under the rule of the Fur Sultans. Despite this, the Darfur subjects (Africans) were never treated kindly by both the Arab rulers and the Fur (African) elites.

 

When the British annexed Darfur in 1916 after the French had asked her to do so, it marked the end of the Fur Sultanate (founded by the Fur, the major inhabitants of Darfur). When Sudan attained self-rule in 1956, Darfur still remained ignored, leading to formation (by the African elites there) of parties that sought to demand recognition on issues of equality―political power and resources. All this tells a story of great marginalisation and neglect by the central government. Things got worse in the late 1980s when politics took advantage of these underlying problems to push Darfur into the senseless carnage we have witnessed.

 

On June 30, 1989, a military officer, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir led a coup that removed a democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sadek al-Mahdi. The coup was orchestrated by Hassan al-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Front (NIF).

 

It was al-Bashir’s government that was to form the Janjaweed militia. In fact, the cooperation between the Sudan central government and militias started in 1987 or thereabout when Prime Minister Sadeq al-Mahdi endorsed the Masiriya militia in the Nuba Mountains as a paramilitary force―the Popular Defense Forces or PDF―to work closely with the army. The Masiriya militia was defending itself against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

 

When al-Bashir came to power, he entrenched it, promulgating the Popular Defense Forces (PDF) Law in 1989. According to Salih (2005), “this PDF law established a paramilitary force whose objectives are to train men and women in civil and military tasks, to raise their level of security consciousness, and instill military discipline so that they can cooperate with the regular armed forces and security services” (p. 8).

 

In the Darfur region, such a military group―the Janjaweed―arose with the support of the central government in Khartoum. The Janjaweed militia (comprised semi-nomadic and nomadic Arab herders). According to Salih (2005), it was mostly comprised of the Baggara nomadic groups who nursed a deep-seated resentment and animosity against the original populations of Darfur (the Fur, the Zaghawa, Masalit, and Berti).

 

When the Arab militias intensified their attack on the African tribes (including the Fur), mainly following famine of the mid-1980s, young Darfuri men organised, marking the beginning of the Darfur crisis in 2003. The Arab militias were well-equipped, however, because they were being supported by the central government.

 

Since 2002, the Sudan Liberation Army (not related to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army of the South) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) as non-Arab militias organised a resistance in the Darfur against marginalisation of the central government (Etefa, 2019, p. 143). It should be pointed out that previously, the Sudan Liberation Army was known as the Darfur Liberation Front, and that the Justice and Equality Movement, although a non-Arab militia, was said to be sympathetic to Hassan al-Turabi (who had fallen out with al-Bashir in 1999).

 

Etefa (2019) adds that this resistance had nothing to do with tribal wars against Arabs. The central government, however, brought in the element of tribe. It therefore responded by unleashing Abbala Janjaweed against the non-Arabs―the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit.

 

The carnage the Janjaweed left in their trail is well documented. They killed men, raped women, poisoned the wells, among others (Hagan & Rymond-Richmond, 2009, p. 20). Flint and de Waal (2008, p. 145) write:

Government and Janjawiid forces destroyed everything that made life possible. Food that could be carried away was; the rest was burned. Animals that could be taken away were; the rest were killed. The simple straw buildings that served as clinics and schools were destroyed, requiring nothing more than a box of matches, and everything in them was stolen or torched. Pumps were smashed and wells polluted―often with corpses. Mosques were burned and Qurans desecrated.

No wonder Totten (2011) writes that “the mass killing of the black Africans of Darfur, Sudan, by Government of Sudan troops and the Janjaweed (Arab militia) beginning in 2003 constitutes the first acknowledged genocide of the twenty-first century” (p. 1). The central government is said to have supported them by bombing the villages using Antonovs (planes) and helicopters before the Janjaweed would arrive to inflict the final blow.

 

Marginalisation and bad politics are also said to be the explanation for the conflict between the Gamuz and the Oromo, two tribes who inhabit the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia. This region was incorporated into Ethiopia, but the move did not bring any major change to the lives of the inhabitants. No effective central government administration was established, nor were infrastructural developments introduced.

 

Etefa (2019) citing Ficquet and Feyissa (2015) writes that the region “has long been neglected on account of its remoteness, insecurity due to Sudan’s civil wars, and colonial treaties that prohibited any kind of investment along the tributaries of the Nile in Ethiopian territory” (p. 30). Etefa therefore concludes that “the Gumuz–Oromo conflict in Benishangul-Gumuz and the neighboring state of Oromia is a conflict of two marginalized communities” (p. 54). The vacuum caused by this marginalisation has thus been seized upon by bad politicians to foment conflict.

 

What comes out clear in all these cases―whether in the Oromo-Pokomo conflict in the Tana Delta of Kenya, the Arab and non-Arab wars in the Darfur, or the Gumuz and Oromo clashes in western Oromia since the early 1990s―is that the major cause of such conflicts is not necessarily land or climate change although most ethnic armed conflicts manifest in natural resources usage. According to Etefa (2019), “the major historical problems include the non-inclusive political system, manipulation of ethnicity, chronic marginalization and neglect, monopolization of state resources, and exclusion coupled with the lack of any democratic mechanism to address them” (p. 8). I could thus conclude that marginalisation and bad politics are at the centre of all these conflicts. The same could be said of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

 

Writing about the programme of human slaughter on a large scale in Rwanda in 1994, Meredith (2011) argues that “the genocide that followed was not caused by ancient ethnic antagonism but by a fanatical elite engaged in a modern struggle for power and wealth using ethnic antagonism as their principal weapon” (p. 452). In other words, when the ruling Hutu clique came face to face with the reality that democracy meant that they had to share power with the opposition and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, “they sought to maintain their hold on power by rousing Hutu against the Tutsi threat, fomenting a climate of fear and hatred, relying on the Hutu’s culture of obedience to ensure their orders were obeyed and preparing for the onslaught well in advance by arming militias and organising death squads” (p. 452).

 

The bottom line here is that historical exclusion or marginalisation or exclusion and marginalisation owing to bad politics is to blame for most conflicts in Africa today. Way back in 1986, July 11, to be exact, Yoweri Museveni (2000, p. 145) had talked about it in his address at the Dar es Salaam University, Tanzania, when he said,

If you look at Uganda, you have to ask: why did essentially small problems become so big? Uganda is a very rich country with many resources―plenty of water and very good soil. Even when you talk of tribes, Uganda is more homogenous than Tanzania, for instance. (Many of the groups in Uganda are linguistically very close; they either speak Bantu or Luo dialects, which are very close.) Owing to the mishandling of the country's politics, however, Uganda almost disintegrated.

What he is suggesting is that a leadership that seizes on ethnic differences for political reasons, or one that excludes other ethnic groups or uses policies that do not address a particular people’s concerns, risks creating for itself policy instability as a manifestation of deep political instability. Today, over thirty-five years this side of power, I am not sure where Mr Museveni stands on these truths.

 

Ethnic diversity is the blessing that GOD gives humanity to enjoy the power and strength of variety for unity. It must be used to rally a rainbow army of people willing to build their countries at whatever cost. Unfortunately, politicians often use it to sow seeds of chaos and hatred for their own benefit, allowing only those from their clique or group to benefit from their small national cakes. Often the result is great human damage and untold human suffering.

 

The current Malawi leadership is an opportunity for true nation-building, especially in the view that Dr Chakwera is coming from the pulpit, where the greatest test of oneness lies in loving your neighbour as you love yourself. We must encourage him to embrace more inclusiveness and reject ideas from some people harbouring ideals that promise to put one ethnic tribe above others in a country that strongly believes in great oneness.

 

This should not mean pushing about the leadership. Remember, leaders are given us by GOD; those who use cheap stunt to portray them in bad light risks offending GOD HIMSELF. But as the citizenry we have a duty to reason with our leadership in a spirit of meekness to ensure they understand our concern and therefore follow principles that will leave no one behind. All previous political parties failed dismally on this. The Tonse Alliance has an opportunity to prove to us they mean business, genuine business for the good of this Great House, Malawi, our Home.

 

Finally, as much as possible, the Tonse Alliance must invest in peace; remember, it is peace that anchors a nation. Leaders are supposed to be authors of peace, leaders of all the people. Leaders who abhor forgiveness and instead glory in chaos, directing a wonderful people down a path of destruction, risk leaving behind a terrible legacy. It is my humble prayer that our leaders will be spared this embarrassing mistake.

 

Sometimes pursuit of peace entails shaking hands with the ‘enemy’. Where an opportunity availeth itself for this, well, wisdom must advise us to so do. Commentators have considered with aversion the version of peace accord Reverend Jesse Jackson had proposed to end the civil war in Sierra Leone, an internecine war between President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s government and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels of Corporal Foday Sankoh. Waugh (2011), for example, has described the July 7, 1999 Lomé agreement in Togo as “an almost laughably generous peace agreement” (p. 144) because it had given the rebels too much.

 

According to Waugh (2011, p. 144),

The key terms of the accord included an amnesty for the RUF and its leadership and provided for Sankoh to take up a key position in the proposed new government, as well as awarding him the vice presidency of the country. Benefiting from the tailwind of the international community’s eagerness for peace at any price, Sankoh was appointed chairman of the board of the Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources. The Commission was intended to be responsible for securing and monitoring the legitimate exploitation of Sierra Leone’s gold and diamonds, and other resources that are determined to be of strategic importance for national security and welfare.

Of course, Sankoh was to dishonour all this, choosing the way of violence one more time, perhaps justifying the criticism some analysts had levelled against Reverend Jackson. My take here is that Reverend Jackson―President Clinton’s special envoy and secretary of state for the promotion of democracy in Africa―had been forced by consideration of the power of peace to ensure that so much was given to Corporal Sankoh for the carnage to stop in Sierra Leone. It did not yield the desired results, unfortunately.

 

Embracing the ‘enemy’ does not signify tolerating evil or corruption. Evils which promise to derail progress of democracy ought to be dealt with viciously within the rut of law. However, it also means accepting that sometimes progress does require some give and take, a difficult choice but necessary for peace.

 

There is a story at www.bbc.com going under the headline “US had conceded too much to Taliban, says Afghan Vice-President”. It is dated January 15, 2020. In the story, Amrullah Saleh, Afghan Vice-President is lamenting the generous offer the United States gave the Taliban in pursuit of peace. Mr Saleh thinks the US had conceded too much, for example, by giving in to a condition that the Afghan had to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners for the negotiations to start.

 

In the deal, the US promised to withdraw NATO and US troops in the country if the Taliban would stop its cooperation with al-Qaeda and other militants in the country. Anyone who remembers the hardline stance the US had taken at the beginning of the War on Terror would be surprised the US could pursue this path. In fact, one critic, Khouri (2019) has described this as “the mad logic of America’s War of Terror”. But is it really mad logic as Khouri argues? I don’t think so. I think the cost of peace at times requires that we should humble ourselves and take the most unexpected path so long as it gives or assures peace. Many African countries are learning this lesson, late though.

 

According to africanews (see “Mali is ready to negotiate with Jihadists: President” available at www.africanews.com, dated February 11, 2020), in Mali, for example, the then President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta had entered into some negotiations with jihadist insurgents before he was removed in a coup. It is said Mali had all along refused to negotiate with militants. Perhaps this change of heart means a realisation that at the end of it all, reality does demand that we should abandon our long-espoused hard-line positions so a people can find and enjoy peace.

 

Another West African nation, Burkina Faso, is also said to have taken this path to peace. According to Lalla Sy of the BBC (see “Burkina Faso ‘open to talks’ with Islamist militants” available at www.bbc.com), the country’s Prime Minister Christophe Dabiré is said to have told parliament he is willing to talk to Islamist militants to secure peace for his people.

 

In our neighbour Mozambique, President Filipe Nyusi has told his people he is open to negotiating with militants to end the attacks in Cabo Delgado. According to www.allafrica.com (see “Mozambique President open to negotiating with militants” available at www.allafrica.com/view/group/mozambique), Mr Nyusi has given the militants one condition for this to work: they must show their face.

 

In June, 2019, one researcher, Akinola Olojo, made an interesting proposal on the question of peace in Somalia. Olojo suggested that perhaps it was time the world considered negotiating with al-Shabaab in Somalia.

 

What is the lesson in all this? Well, that the path to peace sometimes makes little sense but that, still, we must pursue peace at whatever cost. Many things in a nation hinge on peace. There are people who tout the path to enmity and vengeance. We would do well to neglect them and embrace peace. One weapon Professor Bingu wa Mutharika had employed to buy Central Region support was to accord Dr Hasting Kamuzu Banda some respect, building him a nice memorial site. Politically, it worked for him.

 

It is my prayer that Tonse Government will not adopt previous governments’ tactics of terrorising using flimsy excuses those they consider enemies simply to exact revenge. Let the Tonse Government teach us that a leadership can put an end to that irrationality.

 

One strange thing about life is that those who lived under great oppression turn themselves worse oppressors when given the opportunity to lead. Take any African country which was under the British or whatever colonial rule but later attained self-rule. What happened to their subjects after independence?

 

In Liberia, the freed slaves from the United States were given an opportunity by philanthropists and good people to start a new life in a free new colony. They indeed started it in Africa―Liberia. This they did in 1847. But how did these Americo-Liberians use this freedom? Well, they ended up turning the indigenous populations in Liberia into slaves in the name of civilising them. The 1980 bloody coup by Samuel Doe had its origins in this; the indigenous Liberians wanted to ‘liberate’ themselves from the Americo-Liberians. This was to lead to another civil war in the country from 1989 when Charles Taylor, son to an Americo-Liberian father, invaded the country. All this boils down to two factors: marginalisation or exclusion and bad politics.

 

It must be our prayer as Malawians for the Tonse Alliance to achieve our goals as a nation. This is dependent on an Alliance undivided, one steering policy in an environment of peace (within the alliance as well as in the nation as a whole). The leadership in the Alliance can work to preserve the agreement and ensure peace and therefore policy stability in the country.

 

My discussion here was merely for them (if they can read this at all) to see the other side of the story. In this way, we could help them work to correct elements that can work to dissipate this amalgam. The fact that alliances have failed before or have failed elsewhere does not necessarily mean the Tonse Alliance is destined for failure. It is how they handle this Alliance that will determine its future.

 

Whichever party we support, we must remember that failure of the Tonse Alliance will mean failure of our public policy and therefore Malawi’s socio-cultural and economic development. For the reason, we need an intact Tonse Alliance, one that should play the instrument through which Malawians of all ethnic backgrounds will contribute to building of this Great Nation. Perhaps this is the reason I always expect my leaders to mention, at least once, the word “unity” in their speeches. This must sink in us, that we believe in nation-building as a people.

 

Conclusion

We know why many alliances end up in acrimonious and irretrievable breakdown; we know why the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition dismally failed (in Kenya). These lessons before us, we are forearmed, in a position to avert chaos that tends to dog alliances. The Tonse Alliance can therefore use foresight and strategic intelligence to resolve proactively differences that may arise especially on matters of elections and by-elections, and by-elections are coming in a month’s time. In this way, the Tonse Alliance can serve Malawi better. Remember, a peaceful terrain is a prerequisite for successful public policy implementation. I therefore expect a well-informed Tonse Alliance, one that is truly “for all of us”, one to lead us in embracing the values of inclusiveness, openness, transparency and accountability, virtues key for a truly democratically transformed society. In the same vein, we must always remember that nation-building is a complex project, one that requires all hands on deck to succeed. It is for this reason that our criticism of our Government should take into account the times we live in and the fact that good transformation does require time. In the words of Rose and Peiffer (2019), “Overcoming obstacles to the reform of bad governance requires patience” (p. 167). For the reason, let us give our Government time. If I would borrow from professor Peter Mutharika (speaking of Dr Chakwera's presidency after the former had lost the Court-sanctioned June 23, 2020 elections): “Let us respect the presidency.” I am sure that the presidency will also be awake, always, to the reality that it ought to respect the contract between them as governors yet agents, and us the governed as principals. Lastly, let me assure those in power that there are many in this country who wish to serve their country, not politics or politicians, those who fear five years with nothing to show for it will be bad news for all Malawians and the future. The reason I write this is to help people see things from the other side so as to engage in a healthy debate rather than irrational demands or unnecessary confrontations. However, if talking like this offends, then we should be advised accordingly, for then, we can transform ourselves into the wildest hand-clappers, pawning the cause of future for transient happiness.

 

I love this Beautiful Country.

 

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