Is The Weakness In Our Opposition Parties Making Malawi A one Party State ?

By Mike Kuntanja

Malawi’s democracy seems to be losing grip day by day as we see opposition parties in the country getting weaker and weaker.

To be sincere for democracy to work we need to have strong opposition in the country and the opposing   political parties we have seem to have lost focus and actually its non existence.  The UDF is a shadow of its own, members of the party can’t come together and agree on anything ever since Dr Muluzi Pulled the financial plug and retired from active politics. MCP once a mighty party of the country but today can’t solve their leadership problems as John Tembo is still clinging to power and infighting continues. AFFORD a non starter as they only have one Member of Parliament after the general election. These factors are contributing heavily on the non existence of strong political opposition in the country.

The current government seems to be on cruise control as it is sailing through easily without proper opposition in the country and mostly in parliament. We have reached an extent where we are only  relying on Non government organisations and churches to mount opposition to government but their platform is not really effective as some of the issues they fight for can be and should be dealt with in parliament and we don’t have that as we only have 27 MCP MPS, 17 UDF MPS and 32 independent MPS who most of them have since joined the government side anyway and AFORD has merely one mp versus   the ruling party DPP which has 113 members of parliament.

We have seen things like the flag bill change which went smoothly in parliament in favour of the ruling party. And government almost got away with it when they wanted to remove John Tembo unconstitutionally as leader of opposition, luckily our independent judicial system reversed the decision.

Even though much can be said and blame the government for abusing their dominance and easily change bills  but the real problem lies with our members of parliament and politicians who for example soon after the general elections most of the independent  mps flocked to government benches. Till today many important people in opposition parties continue to abandon their parties and are joining the government side. As we have recently seen some Zomba UDF gurus who have abandoned their party saying it’s a sinking ship. It’s a sad situation to Malawi democracy as it is getting weaker day by day.

President Bingu Wa Mutharika in one of his speeches he explained the need of having opposition in a country to maintain democracy  but it seems our politicians did not understand it that way and they don’t really enjoy being on  the opposition benches. Of course this works well for the one in power as he will have little opposition at the end of the day.

Our politicians should understand being on the opposite benches does not necessarily mean you’re a lesser Mp, but should know that they have the same rights as those on the government benches and they get the same allowance  and benefits as those on the ruling side. They should also understand that they have a job to do in parliament and their main job is to represent the people who voted for them in the general election. Surely this can be done effectively whether you’re on government bench or on the opposition benches.

In parliament everyone is given the chance to say something and thus one of advantages of being in a democratic country.

They should also understand being in the opposition it doesn’t mean to oppose everything the government is doing but act as a watch dog to government to see if what the government is doing is beneficial to Malawians for the greater good and for the future.

For Malawi to continue enjoying the benefits of democracy and continue living in freedom which was fought for in 1993, politicians should understand we seriously need strong opposition the one that should be able to put pressure on government not to abuse power and act as a watch dog for the government for the benefit of Malawians and the country.

Our opposition parties need to stop infighting, sort out leadership problems and focus on building parties for the future because their problems are hugely affecting our democracy and we need strong opposition to maintain strong democracy which will help the economic growth and stability for the better future of all Malawians.

The politicians should start practicing democracy in their parties elect leaders democratically and go on from there. The basic principles of democracy should start at party level.  We have seen people being suspended even being expelled from their parties for expressing an opinion different from that of the party leadership a situation which is not democratic and is worrisome.

And those MPs on the government side should also understand they have a job to do and that is to represent the people who voted for them and should avoid overlooking that fact by putting a blind eye to whatever the government is doing whether good or bad.

We need to continue building our country for the future generation and maintaining strong democracy is one way of being guaranteed a brighter future and  to continue living in freedom in our beloved   country and grow economically.

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Posted by malawi voice on Sep 2 2010. Filed under LATEST NEWS, OPINION. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry