Belshazzar’s Feast: When a Tree-Planting Ceremony Became a Political Victory Lap

January 16, 2026. Phalombe District. A crowd gathered for hope, 41 million trees to be planted, communities to be rebuilt after devastating floods, resilience against climate change.

Instead, they got a victory speech.

Second Vice President Enock Chihana stood before the National Tree Planting Season launch and pivoted from environmental salvation to political score-settling. The Malawi Congress Party had been “booted out of government,” he declared. Their loyalists had been “kicked out of employment.” Then came the phrase that would eclipse the entire tree campaign: MCP supporters “awamana feteleza”, they have slipped and fallen.

At an event meant to unite Malawians around survival, Chihana chose division.

What Chihana may have forgotten: he holds an appointed position from which he can be disappointed at any time. And many of those he mocked? They voted for the party that gave him his job.

The Sacred Duty He Forgot

When Chihana was sworn in as Second Vice President, he pledged to serve all Malawians, not DPP supporters, not AFORD members, but the nation. The Constitution makes no distinction between those who voted for the government and those who didn’t.

But here’s the problem: Chihana wasn’t elected. President Peter Mutharika appointed him to fulfill a DPP-AFORD alliance agreement. Unlike the First Vice President, whose position is constitutional, the Second Vice President serves entirely at presidential discretion.

Mutharika can disappoint him from office at any moment.

This means Chihana is celebrating the fall of civil servants while occupying a position far more precarious than theirs. He mocks others for slipping when he stands on the most unstable ground in government, an appointed role with no electoral mandate, no constitutional protection, dependent entirely on alliance politics.

The next elections? 2030. That’s four years of needing to prove AFORD’s value to DPP, four years of justifying his continued appointment.

The Ancient Warning

In the Book of Daniel, King Belshazzar threw a feast for a thousand nobles. Drunk on power, he called for sacred vessels looted from Jerusalem’s Temple and used them for his celebration. The party ended when a hand wrote on the wall: “You have been weighed and found wanting.” That night, the kingdom fell.

The parallel is precise. At an event celebrating community resilience through environmental stewardship, Chihana hijacked the platform for partisan gloating. He took a function meant to unite Malawians around climate survival, a threat affecting all citizens regardless of party, and turned it into a victory lap.

The “sacred vessel” was a national tree-planting initiative meant to help flood-damaged communities. Instead of rallying Malawians to plant 41 million trees for collective survival, he divided them into winners and losers.

Is anyone writing on the walls of State House?

The Chewa Farmers Left Behind

The Central Region, Kasungu, Dowa, Ntchisi, Lilongwe Rural, is Chewa heartland and Malawi’s agricultural backbone. These districts should be prime beneficiaries of both the Affordable Inputs Programme and this tree-planting campaign.

Yet complaints about government agricultural program access in Central Region persist. The question now: will this tree-planting initiative reach these communities effectively, or will farmers again struggle to access support meant for all Malawians?

The Man Who Delivered the Vote

Alfred Gangata changed the last election.

As one of the Central Region’s most influential Chewa leaders, his DPP endorsement was significant. His support helped the party make inroads into constituencies that traditionally leaned MCP. He spoke to Chewa communities in their language, invoked shared values, promised inclusive governance.

People trusted him. People voted DPP.

Now those voters watch civil servants with Chewa surnames dismissed, questions mount about equitable program access, and the Second Vice President celebrates their political “fall.”

Is Alfred Gangata smiling? Or calculating the cost of broken promises?

The Reckoning

Gangata staked decades of credibility on one promise: that DPP would govern fairly, that tribal identity wouldn’t determine government access, that the Central Region would receive equitable treatment.

He convinced skeptical village headmen and traditional leaders who’d supported MCP for generations.

Now his people watch as “MCP loyalist”, in the Chewa-dominated Central Region, becomes a label determined by ethnicity and geography alone. Gangata delivered his community to a government now treating them as enemies.

Why Would He Risk It?

Here’s the baffling question: Why would Chihana, whose position depends entirely on the AFORD-DPP alliance, antagonize the Central Region that Gangata delivered?

Why give AFORD’s rivals within the coalition ammunition to argue his party is a liability?

Why celebrate job losses when his own job security is the weakest in government?

Between now and 2030, he needs to prove AFORD adds value to DPP. Alienating Chewa voters and undermining the leader who delivered them doesn’t accomplish that. It accomplishes the opposite.

Perhaps it’s the intoxication of borrowed power. Perhaps it’s forgetting that appointed authority vanishes faster than electoral mandates. Whatever the reason, Chihana is celebrating others falling while standing on ground that could disappear at presidential discretion.

The Writing on the Wall

When victory becomes vengeance, when governance becomes tribal warfare, when national programs are overshadowed by partisan score-settling, democracy itself slips and falls.

The irony: at an event celebrating “community resilience,” Chihana demonstrated the opposite, fracturing communities along party lines rather than uniting them against climate change.

Central Region farmers Gangata convinced to trust DPP have raised persistent concerns about accessing government programs. Now they’re expected to participate in a tree campaign led by a Vice President who publicly celebrated their “fall” at the campaign’s launch.

The feast continues. The speeches grow louder.

But somewhere, perhaps in State House, someone may be taking notes. Watching which appointees remember their duty. Watching which have forgotten that positions given can be withdrawn.

Alfred Gangata delivered the Chewa vote on promises of inclusive governance. His people now watch those promises tested.

Enock Chihana turned a tree-planting ceremony into partisan celebration, speaking from a position he occupies only at presidential pleasure.

The hand may already be writing on the wall.

The only question is who will be around to read it.

 

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