Chakwera breaks silence on Malawi’s power crisis: ‘Prices have been stolen from farmers’

Malawi’s former president Lazarus Chakwera has broken his silence on the country’s ongoing power crisis and the collapse of crop prices, delivering a blunt assessment of the hardship facing farmers to a crowd he stumbled upon while travelling home from a funeral.

Chakwera, who led Malawi as president from 2020 until his defeat in the 2025 election, made the remarks after stopping at Chimbiya market in Dedza, as he made his way back from the burial of Professor Zimani Kadzamira.

Speaking to those gathered, the former president did not hold back on the state of the electricity supply.

“Electricity is unreliable. Here at Chimbiya, people used to come to trade — but this year they’ve simply been robbed… prices for crops have been stolen from them. A farmer doesn’t know what his future holds, ndi zedi eti,” he said.

He went further, turning his attention to the plight of small-scale traders and farmers left without power to run their businesses.

“We want farming to benefit you. You who run small businesses should be profiting, without power cuts getting in your way. But it seems this has fallen into the wrong hands,” he said.

The former president struck a more conciliatory note as he closed his remarks, appearing to acknowledge the political weight of speaking out.

“This visit is simply about seeking forgiveness from one another, because we did not always agree, we did not always understand each other. If you do not forgive, then God will not forgive us either,” Chakwera said.

The comments mark a rare public intervention from the former leader, whose Malawi Congress Party lost power at the polls last year, as the country continues to grapple with chronic electricity shortages and mounting frustration among farmers over crashing produce prices.