The Desperate Attempt to Remain Relevant

By Fryson Chodzi

The best way to respond to the botched up national address by the Vice President Rt. Hon. Saulos Klaus Chilima is to start on the constitution which he queried the Government of not respecting. As Chilima speak as a constitutionalist all the time, the question is which section in the constitution gives him the power to address the nation?

At the first glance of his purported address, Chilima is a man who feels has the monopoly of wisdom in this country. He is a person who feels that his recommendations though misguided must be taken as gospel truth and followed with gospel precision. But truth be told, all what Chilima seeks is to be invited to the table and help on Covid 19 and feels left out of the limelight, which he always thrives on.

His analysis on the failure of Covid 19 actions is like a person questioning the type of water used in dowsing fire. It doesn’t matter which water one uses to put out fire, weather dirty water, from a borehole, from the river, from a fire brigade or wherever. But it seems Chilima is so obsessed with the quality of the water used in putting out fire than that the fire is out. As a matter of emphasis and clarity can someone tell Vice President Rt. Hon Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima that ‘madzi ozimitsila moto susakha’

First and foremost, he talks about people not having trust in their Government ability to respond to Covid 19 but what he doesn’t say is that he is the source and encourages people not to trust the Government. His continued efforts in undermining the actions of the Cabinet Committee on Covid 19 is the more reasons why people want to be rebellious to the Government effort. This is well combined with the continued denial from his bedfellow in politics who have publicly stated that there is no Covid 19 in Malawi and all tests are fake, a thing that Chilima never condemned nor talked about.

Chilima’s grand standing and undermining the authority of others is his undoing to an extent of calling the committee incompetent. I for one understand why the press conference was designed as the Vice President’s address. It was a desire to outshine his political bedfellow, MCP President Dr. Lazurus Chakwera while at the same time not to rattle him so the choice to speak as the Vice President of Malawi. Unfortunately, he came out by stating that he stand by remarks made earlier as a President of UTM, so what capacity was Chilima speaking as? Vice President or party president?

Then the lowest of all was Chilima’s justification of challenging a lockdown. In Chilima the reasons why he is against the lockdown and sponsoring the Court Injunction is only found within the statement which he states that the lockdown is political. That tells you that Chilima is not afraid of the impact of Covid 19 and how devastating the disease can be, but rather for his political expedience. He acknowledges with disdain that lockdown can help contain the disease but brings out incoherent 7 questions about scientific hullaballoos which doesn’t make any sense at all.

The entire address was meant to justify the electoral process though Chilima spent much time circumventing on issues to get to it, no wonder he called it the ‘proverbial elephant in the house’. This came with the worst contradiction of the speech as Chilima calls upon people to stay and work at home as much as possible while at the same time he calls upon people to register for votes in large numbers. That’s utter disgust for a person who seems to care and sound to protect the people’s life from covid 19. Chilima should have been asking the following questions not those nonsensical ones;
a) Has MEC tested all the BVRK Operators and Staff it has deployed to conduct the registration exercise?
b) What are the risk allowances that MEC has put in place for putting lives for over 3000 lives in front line?
c) Has MEC employed a medical consultant on its board who is advising it on covid 19?
d) What compensation has MEC set out in the event one person under their supervision contract the coronavirus?
e) What preventive measures has MEC put in place to protect the people from covid?
f) What alternative voting procedures has MEC put in place so as not to expose people to Covid 19. 48 countries have postponed elections worldwide and those holding them are putting place alternative voting procedures, is Malawi ready?
g) What logistical measures have been put in place including printing of ballot papers which requires party monitors to be present during the loading, dispatch and distribution of the same?

In the thick of things, am still mesmerized and dazzled at the obsession that Chilima has over Hon Atupele Muluzi. I have noted that in each speech that Chilima makes he tries to vilify and insult Atupele Muluzi. Right from Masintha rally, to Njamba rally where he stated that Muluzi is a baby, to a despair UTM President address on Covid 19 where is stated that Muluzi’s donation to China was laughable and to latest where he attacks Muluzi for making essential donations to needy communities.

What’s the obsession that Chilima has with Muluzi? It seems Chilima is a man so desparate to blame everyone, everything and everybody for his shortcomings. Apart from his rants on Covid 19, what else has he done to help the people of Malawi?

Forget about his mistake of donating a same salary twice, first which he gave to Charity immediately after becoming an accidental Vice President through a Judicial coup, and then an attempt to sound relevant by donating the same salary to covid action. By the way, can Chilima provide the evidence of which Charity has he donated his money to and what covid action has so far benefited from his salary?

The hypocrisy of Chilima’s speech is when he accuses cabinet ministers of organizing rallies and meetings on the background of Covid 19 which undermines the efforts of dealing with the disease. The irony of that is the past week we have seen the UTM busy organizing rallies and he has not stopped his party cronies. Does this mean UTM is covid immune? Or rather, it’s ok with Chilima for UTM to organize rallies but not others? If you are indeed worried about these rallies, why don’t you take the initiative to stop the forth coming elections and find a political solution on the same, because that’s what is necessitating these rallies in the first place.

Finally, Chilima if he indeed believes in the constitution and as a Vice President, he must do the honorable thing, write his boss a memo on the suggestions and proposals. At the least, he should have been telling Malawians that I have been writing President Mutharika and the system is not responding. It’s a fallacy of highest order to expect the Government to respond to his PR stunts on important critical matters when the official channels are still open for him.

By the way, did it require creating falsehoods on the health of the President so as to justify the address to the nation?