BY FOCUS MAGANGA
UTM president Saulosi Klaus Chilima and the main opposition Malawi Congress Party president, Lazarus Chakwera, are being pushed into a romantic political affair because it is believed their marriage would grant them both a passport into glorious corridors of power.
At a point, we all thought their marriage would come out naturally, and be a cake walk. We saw them fighting together. We saw them laughing together. We all thought they are each other’s suitor. The heavens might have taken the whole day to link together their chemistry so that they can perfectly bond, we thought.
But the smiles at courtyard are like the calmness of deep waters, they keep a lot. Theirs is a beautiful marriage that never was. And so we could be reading too much in our imaginations of the splendor in their union.
Many times than not, we are so excited at what this marriage will make us become, but completely ignore what the marriage will do to the couples. And again to their close cronies who have been serving and investing in them.
Are they compatible? Will they be talking the same language at the honeymoon and beyond once they get into power? Do they share the same vision? Importantly, who will have to husband the other?
I, for some reasons, wish to concentrate on the last question. Who deserves to lead in this ‘mgwirizano’.
I first look at Chilima. Chilima has the energy of a lion, charisma of an eagle and experience of the fox. All in their pie apple order.
He could justifiably expect to husband Chakwera because he already has vice presidency experience. And more so, The Chilima Brand is hot cake. His UTM supporters are UTM because of Chilima.
They voted for UTM because of Chilima, and should Chilima be anything less than the head of the affair, some of his voters might not vote at all. Or they will join Adad and his sweet and well composed yellow bride.
And even more so, the UTM’s dream will die the moment Chilima is made anything other than the presidency in the pushed alliance. I mean will Chakwera be allowing Chilima to go around strengthening his UTM on the ground post the fresh elections? Irrefutably, should Chilima be not the head of the alliance, 1+1 will be less than 2.
But Chakwera has a lot in his briefcase two. He comes with him into this possible alliance with a locust of strong base. And Chakwera speaks enchantingly like the queen bird of Chikangawa forest.
He will muster an army of loyal following that does exactly as he puts it. In Parliament, his MCP has the numbers more than seven fold that of UTM, and only second to the ruling blue camp.
And so Chakwera’s most anointed strength is that he captains a formidable force.
Unsurprisingly, Chakwera expects Chilima to cool down and ‘put Malawians first’ by seconding him at the maximum—well because the other way round is to put him third in command and second to Mia—because he believes Chilima is just but a boy.
Looking deeply in the junctions of their ‘unfaulty reasoning’, it only makes sense to expect UTM special taskforce on marriage arrangement for Chakwera and Chilima to come back with the obvious news— that the couples and their closest cronies don’t approve of this marriage.
chakwera is deadly and many of us perceive him as an autocrat looking at how he ascended to mcp’s torch bearer by using muscle to ignore convention. the way he reacted after he lost the just ended polls, “I will shed blood!”, this puts him in the category of most dangerous, undemocratic guys, who will change our constitution at will, barring his most feared competetors to remain malawi’s mkuludzimdza. to be honest if he wins, no one will dare to criticize and compete against him. chilima is fascinating, he acts as if he is not educated. how can he fail to understand chakwera’s character looking at how he turned against those people who were loyal to him? he will be the next victim and it will be a good lesson for him to differentiate apm, the cool political and economic lecturer who came to teach africa true democracy and self reliance which some ignore.