Chakwera’s final duty to MCP is to leave before the party mistakes loyalty for renewal

Former State President Dr Lazarus Chakwera’s greatest political service to the Malawi Congress Party may no longer be to lead it. It is to leave it.

That is not an argument for erasing his contribution. It is an argument for protecting it. Chakwera carried MCP from the long shadow of opposition into government, restored its claim to national relevance and, in 2020, became the face of one of Africa’s most consequential democratic corrections after Malawi’s annulled 2019 election. But parties, like nations, survive only when leaders know the difference between a chapter and a dynasty.

After the 2025 election defeat, that distinction has become unavoidable. President Prof Peter Mutharika’s return to power was not a marginal event. The former president won decisively, with about 56.8% of the vote, while Chakwera finished on roughly 33%. It was a bruising rejection of an incumbent government and a devastating reversal for MCP.

Chakwera deserves credit for conceding. In a region where defeated incumbents can be tempted by courts, soldiers, police or party mobs, his acceptance of the result mattered. It helped preserve Malawi’s reputation as a country where voters can still change governments. But concession at national level cannot be used as a shield against accountability inside the party.

The MCP now faces a simple question: can the same leader who has just been rejected by the electorate credibly be presented as the architect of renewal for 2030? The answer is no.

The party must call internal general elections now: from the districts and regions to the national executive committee and the presidency of the party. Anything less will look like delay dressed up as procedure. The court has already pushed MCP in that direction. A recent High Court consent judgment ordered the party to hold elections for district and regional committees within 12 months, after a challenge over the legality and expired mandates of party structures.

MCP should not treat that ruling as a narrow administrative inconvenience. It should treat it as a democratic warning. If the foundations are expired, the roof cannot be declared sound. A party that wants to govern Malawi again cannot organise itself through structures whose legitimacy is being questioned by its own members.

The deeper issue is leadership. Parties lose elections for many reasons: economic headwinds, campaign errors, voter fatigue, rival mobilisation, regional shifts, broken alliances and simple anger. But when a governing party is removed after one term, it must begin with self-examination, not self-preservation.

The economy was central to Chakwera’s fall. His administration was punished by voters living through inflation, shortages, currency pressure and a cost-of-living crisis that turned campaign promises into bitter memories. AP reported that Chakwera’s term was marked by economic decline, rising living costs and shortages, all of which contributed to his loss of popularity.

MCP cannot pretend this was merely a communications failure. It was a trust failure. People who voted for change in 2020 felt that the change had not reached their kitchens, farms, fuel queues, hospitals or trading centres. The Tonse promise became, for many households, another elite slogan. That is why a leadership reset is not optional. It is existential.

Chakwera’s continued hold on the party presidency risks creating a paralysis familiar across African ruling and former ruling parties: the leader becomes too senior to challenge, too wounded to inspire and too powerful to replace. Around him, ambitious figures wait, factions form, young politicians learn caution instead of courage, and the grassroots are reduced to applause.

That would be fatal for MCP. The party has only four years to rebuild before 2030. In political terms, that is not a long time. A new leader would need to tour the country, repair damaged structures, rebuild credibility in hostile regions, define an economic alternative, recruit younger voices, reconnect with civil society and prove that MCP has learned from defeat. Waiting until 2029 would be organisational malpractice.

This is why calls for Chakwera to step aside should not be dismissed as indiscipline. They are part of the necessary post-defeat reckoning. Some MCP members have already argued that he should resign and allow a convention to elect leaders who can prepare the party for 2030. Political analyst Boniface Dulani has also warned that MCP should not wait until 2029 to confront its leadership question, urging the party to use the court-ordered internal elections as a wider moment of reform.

The temptation, of course, will be to preach unity. Every defeated party does. Unity is the word leaders use when accountability begins to knock. But unity without reform is just silence. It keeps the same people in the same rooms, making the same calculations, while voters move on.

Real unity is built through consent. If Chakwera still believes he has a mandate to lead MCP into the next election, he should submit himself to an open, properly organised convention. But the wiser course would be to announce that he will not contest. That would immediately lower the temperature, create space for debate and allow the party to choose its future without fear of insulting its past.

There is dignity in that path. Chakwera does not need to be dragged from office by factional revolt, court pressure or electoral humiliation. He can choose an orderly transition. He can say, truthfully, that he led MCP to government, respected the voters when they removed him from State House, and then respected party democracy by allowing new leadership to emerge.

That would be a rare kind of statesmanship. Too many African political leaders treat parties as personal estates. They speak of democracy in national capitals while suffocating it in party headquarters. They demand renewal from the country but block renewal at home. Chakwera, a former pastor who built much of his public appeal around moral language, should understand the danger of clinging too long.

MCP also needs to be honest about generational politics. The Malawi of 2030 will not be the Malawi of 2020. Younger voters will be less patient with historical claims, liberation nostalgia or party colours. They will ask harder questions: where are the jobs? Why are prices rising? Why do politicians become rich while citizens queue? Why should we trust the same faces who disappointed us last time?

A new MCP leader must answer those questions without carrying the full burden of the Chakwera presidency. That does not mean rejecting everything his administration attempted. It means allowing someone else to separate what can be defended from what must be abandoned.

Opposition politics is not only about criticising Mutharika. It is about becoming believable again. Mutharika’s administration will face its own pressures: economic recovery, corruption, public debt, food security and the impatience of voters who returned him to power expecting relief. MCP should be preparing a disciplined alternative. Instead, if it spends the next two years managing Chakwera’s succession, it will hand the Democratic Progressive Party the one gift every government wants: a divided opposition without a clear face.

The party’s internal general election should therefore be comprehensive. Districts must vote. Regions must vote. The national executive must be renewed. The party presidency must be contested. The rules must be transparent, the register credible and the process protected from manipulation. MCP cannot campaign nationally on democracy while practising appointment politics internally.

Chakwera’s supporters may argue that removing him now would look like panic. The opposite is true. Panic is waiting until the last minute. Panic is pretending the 2025 result was a temporary setback rather than a structural warning. Panic is allowing factions to organise in whispers because the party refuses to organise in daylight.

A managed transition now would show seriousness. It would tell Malawians that MCP has heard the verdict. It would tell members that the party belongs to them, not to any individual. It would tell future candidates that leadership must be earned, not inherited through proximity to power.

Chakwera should resign as party leader, not because he has no legacy, but because he does. His legacy will be stronger if he leaves voluntarily than if he becomes the obstacle through which MCP must fight its way to the future.

The task before him is clear. Convene the party. Announce a transition. Open the field. Let MCP elect a new leadership with the time, legitimacy and energy to prepare for 2030.

The former president once asked Malawians to believe that change was possible. Now his own party needs him to prove it.

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