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The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting and, it is hitting hard. Away from home, and close to home. More than ever, we are beginning to realize the reality and seriousness of the problem at hand. Unlike before when it was thought that COVID-19 was a fuss due to the low number of fatalities, the second wave is challenging this shaky conception. The reality is, we have a pandemic, and it is not a fake pandemic, it is a real pandemic that is claiming lives. Lives of citizens of our country, and lives of distinguished leaders, mothers, fathers, professionals, siblings and friends. But in the midst of all this, there is evident discontent with the way the government is managing the crisis. Things you will have come across are as follows; we have no president , APM was better there were less fatalities , President Chakwera is just good at speaking good English he won’t take us anywhere , the government is clueless ….can you add more?  If you are reading this I assume you mu

Time is one of the biggest riddles of the universe. Many a men have tried to understand its prowess with no success. Time is a puzzle that just doesn’t fit. As Albert Einstein remarked, time is an illusion. Malawi is poised for a new direction following the Fresh Presidential Election of 23 rd June 2020. That direction is still a mystery. A land yet to be discovered. A route yet to be explored. What we have experienced as a country in the past year or so is a paradigm shift for our political landscape. We have witnessed unprecedented citizen participation in the electoral process as well as other processes leading to the fresh presidential elections. The citizenry has finally woken up from the slumber to reclaim the rights entrusted upon them by the Constitution of the land. Citizens have long at last realized that the authority to govern first and foremost is derived from the will of the people. A strong tenet of electoral democracy. The interest of this article is to d

First published in The Nation newspaper of 15 July 2019 Yet again, we experienced another shocking post-election event. On Monday, a grouping of women, organised a press conference in Blantyre where they drummed support for Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Jane Ansah.   I am concerned with the gender and feminist lenses through which the organisers were trying to call us to look at the demonstrations organised against Justice Ansah. Seodi White, one of the major architects of the grouping and all the women who patronised the meeting are misguided to think that the demonstrations organised against Ansah were about her sex and the gender roles placed on women in Malawian culture. This contradicts the gender and feminist movement! Since the gender and feminism movement first emerged, proponents and supporters of the academy have made serious inroads in trying to achieve a more functional and conducive environment for women. Indeed, we have witnesse

Malawians voted for multiparty democracy in the referendum of June 1993. Through the referendum, Malawians expressed their desire for parties to co-exist in a market based political field; where the one with the bestselling skills should excel. In addition, they also accepted that these groupings would surely have different ideas and ideologies and that belonging to either of them should be the total freedom of an individual. But for the existence of these political groupings, and peace in the country, there is a need for political tolerance. It can thus be only patriotism and an understanding of our past that should challenge every Malawian to be politically tolerant. Political tolerance at the conceptual level must be viewed to refer to the will to accept and recognise that the rights an individual enjoys, must also extend to organisations and persons whose view point differ from one’s own. From the foregoing, one cannot overemphasize the importance of political tolerance.

(First published in the Nation newspaper of 23 January, 2019) The 2019 tripartite elections are getting closer and closer by each passing day. On a preliminary note, I have observed that we have spent the last four years campaigning for these elections. Through no particular sophisticated method of research but mere casual observation, I have also observed that campaign and elections dominate our national development agenda at the expense of a development agenda. As this article argues, we must have a reversal of this order of things, and the youth must be the orchestrator. Have you watched political rallies? Have you followed social media debates? Have you been to colleges and universities and observed the college wings for political parties? Have you seen the flags flying on electricity poles and street lights and high trees? There was a youth in the making. This albeit insignificantly sends my first point to base, the youth is an integral part of Malawian politics. Take hi

I just finished re-reading an essay Peter Mutharika wrote when he was Professor of Law at Washington University, St Louis, Missouri.  I first read it for a class assignment. This time, I read it out of curiosity following his speech at the launch of the Tsangano-Ntcheu-Mwanza road construction project.  I refuse to judge the President by one side of the story. So I read the essay to discover the President’s deeper side.  I believe he is a good thinker and able to put his thoughts in the simplest of terms as was the case when he was unpacking the concept of community technical colleges launched to offer the youth vocational skills. In The 1995 Democratic Constitution of Malawi the essay published in the Journal of African Law, Mutharika pulls no punches. He writes; “ Good governance will be possible if the people demand accountability and transparency from their government, if the government understands that it must act within the framework of the rule of law a

Malawians have looked up to the Judiciary no less than they have looked at politicians to end corruption. However, there is desperation in the people yearning for an end to the malpractice. One could see confirmation of my assumption recently when the country’s Vice President launched his United Transformation Movement. The crowd stayed relatively quiet until when he promised to deal with corrupt politicians and individuals when put into power.  That is a story for another day. Today, I write in agreement with Professor Danwood Chirwa’s article entitled “ A plea for the legal profession to cleanse itself” . As a preamble, let me bring to your attention dear reader the various points he makes.  Firstly, that the disciplinary system among lawyers is dysfunctional. This is based from the source of his article, a leaked conversation among lawyers where some lawyers admit corruption both in their practice and in their dealings (if at all they are different).  Secondly, he u