Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika’s dumping of his ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) and his bid to form a new party has brought an uncertain chapter in the country’s nascent democracy.

It is an era of mixed feelings because this has never happened in the history of contemporary African politics and threatens to create new debate and rhetoric at a time when people feel they need to get down to a rebuilding process after the first decade of multi-party politics that followed 30 years of autocracy by the late Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda.

Constitutionally, Mutharika has no restrictions to quit his or any party. He has the people’s mandate to run the country until 2009.

Alick Msowoya, Malawi Law Society spokesperson, says, “Here the president is chosen through direct suffrage, meaning that although [presidential] candidates are chosen by their parties, the choice of the president during elections is by the people [directly]. Any fallout between the president and his party has no legal implications.”

This was never envisaged when the Malawi Republican Constitution was being crafted in the early 1990s. Therefore, by quitting the UDF, President Mutharika has given Malawi democracy a shock treatment, one which has also jolted the opposition, notably the main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP).

MCP leader John Tembo is on record saying they will give the president a tough time in Parliament, particularly on some decisions, such as a MK1 billion Loan Revolving Fund for small-scale businesses that Mutharika launched without consulting the House. (US$1=108 Malawi kwacha)

The UDF has threatened the same.

However, “Government can still do business in parliament without any party on its side,” according to Garton Kamchedzera, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College.

“This is a chance to demarcate party from government business,” says Kamchedzera, who adds that he does not expect much change in parliament, as long as the Executive brings in sound proposals and policies.

These sentiments are shared by the Public Affairs Committee (PAC), a respected inter-faith national grouping which comments and gives direction to public issues and debates.

PAC Chair, Monsignor Boniface Tamani, applauds the Mutharika resignation, saying it is good for democracy as Malawi will see an independent parliament.

But Tamani cautions on the formation of a party by the president, arguing that “he should take his time to work as an independent for Malawians to see the benefits of having an independent president.”

Malawi Law Society President for the Central Region, Austin Msowoya, adds a new dimension, that the president’s move can be challenged in court if the UDF and the entire opposition so wish. Msowoya says parliament may also come in with an impeachment process – especially if the issue of decisions requiring parliamentary approval is further pursued.

Impeachment or any move to frustrate the president in parliament relies on numbers.

The main opposition MCP has a majority of 64 Members of Parliament (MPs) after the last by-election. The independent MPs have 40 seats. The UDF has 51 seats, followed by Gwanda Chakuamba’s Republican Party (RP) with 17 seats.

The once powerful Northern Region-based Alliance for Democracy (Aford) has eight seats, and veteran Aleke Banda’s People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) has seven MPs. An Aford splinter group, Movement for Genuine Democracy (Mgode), has three seats. Other small parties – the People Transformation Party (Petra) and the Coalition for National Unity (Conu) – have a seat each, bringing the total number of MPs to 192 in the 193-seat chamber. One seat is vacant.

For the House to impeach the president, it needs an indictment by a two-thirds majority of a committee of the House, and for the conviction of impeachment a two-thirds majority (130 MPs) of the House is required – according to Section 8 of the Constitution. The matter can also be subject to legal proceedings, as the Law Society says.

The combined threat of the MCP (64), UDF (51), RP (17) and the independents (40) is therefore more than real to unseat the president, because their force is more than the two-thirds required for the impeachment process or any major constitutional changes in Parliament.

This is where the president is said not to have been sleeping either. He has roped in RP leader Chakuamba to his side and given him the key portfolio of the ministry of agriculture. RP already has a minister in Mutharika’s government.

The president has also taken aboard 21 senior UDF gurus who include cabinet ministers, MPs and members of the UDF Central Executive Committee. Every day, UDF members of various grades are publicly resigning from the party and pledging to work with Mutharika’s government or to join his unlaunched party.

Mutharika is also wooing the 40 independent MPs, whom he met recently at State House in Zomba. Some of the independents are still glued to former president Muluzi.

Meanwhile, the whole Aford executive, which recently expelled their leader, Chakufwa Chihana, has lent its weight behind Mutharika.

While the numbers for Mutharika are not yet definite, he is seen to have made substantive inroads for a strong parliamentary muscle. But some observers contend that the battle is still on, because most of the people who have quickly moved to Mutharika’s side are said to be transient “opportunists, job-seekers” and failures.

Mutharika is consolidating his grip by forming a party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose launch has been postponed. This comes amid calls from church and human rights organisations that feel the president needs to take his time.

The UDF and Muluzi spokesperson, Sam Mpasu, reacted angrily to the move, saying: “To turn UDF into DPP is not only laughable but illegal, immoral and a serious threat to Malawi’s democracy.”

Commentators see the Mutharika-Muluzi rift as originating from the former president’s bid to cling to the public podium, after his UDF failed to achieve the majority in parliament in the last election.

By hand-picking Mutharika and selling him to the electorate, Muluzi gambled that he would continue ruling the country from behind, a case that has turned out otherwise. (SARDC)

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