Dassu: Malawi’s vice-presidency is a constitutional office, not a party asset

There are critical moments in the life of a constitutional democracy when we must step back and confront a fundamental question: what does the supreme law of our land, the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi, demand?

Since our hard-fought-for democracy, the recurring debates over the status, authority, and security of tenure of Malawi’s First Vice-President present precisely such a moment.

I write this neither to champion nor to attack any individual politician or political party. I write as someone who spent years in the trenches fighting for the end of the One-Party dictatorship and the birth of our multiparty democracy in 1994. Having played an active role in that struggle alongside men and women who risked everything to dismantle authoritarian rule, I bear both a civic duty and claim the absolute right to speak out when the sacred constitutional architecture we fought to build is threatened by political convenience, as it has been over the years.

Those of us who challenged the autocratic apparatus of the Malawi Congress Party era of darkness and death did not do so merely to swap one set of political masters for another. We fought for a Malawi where institutions would stand taller than individuals, where constitutional mandates could not be rewritten by executive whim, and where public office would remain fundamentally answerable to the electorate under the rule of law.

It is through this historical lens that we must examine the constitutional office of the First Vice-President.

Elected by the People, Not Appointed by the Party

The 1994 Constitution of the Republic of Malawi is unambiguous regarding the ultimate source of the Vice-President’s authority.

Under Section 80(3), every presidential candidate must formally declare a running mate at the time of nomination. Section 80(4) reinforces this mandate, stating that the First Vice-President is elected concurrently with the President, appearing on the exact same ballot paper.

Every single Malawian who casts a vote for a President is, on that exact same ballot paper, directly electing the Vice-President with the very same vote. The Vice-President is elected by the sovereign people of Malawi just as much as the President is.

This distinction is of paramount legal consequence:

• Before an election: A presidential candidate selects a running mate as Vice-President.
• After the election: That running mate ceases to be a mere party functionary or political associate. They assume an independent constitutional office created by Section 79 of the Supreme Law and validated directly by the electorate of Malawi.

The Absolute Separation of Party and State

We must be unequivocal on this point: once the President and the Vice-President are sworn into office, their political party has no constitutional authority whatsoever over their tenure or state functions.

A political party presents its candidates to the electorate. Once the voters make their choice at the ballot box, party jurisdiction ends and the jurisdiction of the Republic of Malawi begins. Party officials hold no legal power to summon, discipline, suspend, or recall a sitting President or Vice-President from their constitutional role, nor can they dictate how executive authority is exercised.

To suggest that a party hierarchy can alter or strip the mandate of an elected officer of state is to subordinate the Supreme Law of the Republic of Malawi to the private rules of a political party. A party owns its internal constitution; it does not own the Constitution of the Republic.

“Once the voters make their choice at the ballot box, party jurisdiction ends and the jurisdiction of the Republic of Malawi begins. Party officials hold no legal power to suspend, recall, or dictate terms to a sitting President or Vice-President.”

The Electoral Mandate and the Succession Safeguard

When Malawians go to the polls, they do not vote for a single individual in a political vacuum. They cast their ballots for a joint executive ticket.

The character, experience, integrity, and political outlook of the running mate form a vital component of the electorate’s decision. This structure was deliberately engineered during the drafting of our 1994 Constitution to avoid the concentration of absolute authority in a single person—a direct reaction to the decades of Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s Life Presidency and his authoritarian dictatorship.

Furthermore, the First Vice-President is not a mere ceremonial deputy. Under Section 83(4) of the Republican Constitution, should the office of the President of the Republic of Malawi become vacant through death, resignation, or incapacity, the First Vice-President automatically assumes the Presidency for the remainder of the term.

When Malawian voters cast their votes, they decide two things simultaneously:

1. Who should lead their country today?
2. And also, who is fit to step into the Presidency tomorrow should tragedy strike?

To suggest that a governing party or a sitting President can simply cast aside an elected Vice-President post-election is to invalidate a core component of the democratic mandate which the voters gave under the Supreme Law.

Political Disputes Are Not Reasons to Remove a Vice-President

In any government, leaders disagree. A President and a Vice-President may fall out, quarrel over policies, or have disagreements between their families and political parties.

Crucially, the Constitution of Malawi dictates that a political disagreement is NOT a legal reason to remove a Vice-President.

Under Sections 84, 85, and 86 of the Constitution, a Vice-President can only leave office for three specific reasons:

1. Death or a written resignation signed by the Vice-President.
2. Medical incapacity, proved and certified by a board of doctors.
3. Impeachment by the Parliament of the Republic of Malawi.

Under Section 86, Parliament cannot impeach a Vice-President just because they have become unpopular with the President, their spouses, or party bosses. Impeachment can only happen if the Vice-President has broken a major written law or committed a serious violation of the Constitution.

The framers of our Constitution created these strict rules so that a President could not easily throw out a Vice-President simply because they stopped getting along.

The Right to Call the President as a Witness

Section 86 of our Supreme Law guarantees natural justice. This simply means the right to a fair trial.

In any fair trial guaranteed by the Constitution:

• You must be told clearly what you are accused of.
• You have the right to show proof that you are innocent.
• You have the right to bring witnesses and ask questions to the people accusing you.

Because the President and Vice-President run the government together, most big decisions are made together. Therefore, if Parliament ever tries to impeach a Vice-President, the Vice-President has the full constitutional right to call the President to stand before Parliament as a witness under oath.

If a Vice-President is accused of wrongdoing, they can legally demand that the President appear in Parliament to answer questions. The President cannot hide behind executive power or refuse to testify. This constitutional rule stops leaders from setting up fake or unfair trials against their deputies.

“If a Vice-President faces a trial in Parliament, they have the constitutional right to bring the President to the witness stand to tell the truth under oath.”

The Danger of Starving the Vice-President’s Office

Sometimes, instead of following the law, a President tries to punish a Vice-President quietly. They do this by taking away their duties, cutting their budget, or refusing to let them attend Cabinet meetings.

While a President has the power to manage daily government work, systematically stripping an elected Vice-President of all work to force them to quit violates the Supreme Law of the land.

An office created by the highest law of our land cannot be turned into an empty title simply because political relations between the President, the Vice-President, their spouses, or party officials have turned sour.

Historical Context: The Precedent of Cassim Chilumpha

Malawi has navigated this exact constitutional crisis more often than a country facing immense challenges posed by hunger, disease, and poverty deserves—and the lessons learned must not be forgotten.

In 2004, Dr Cassim Chilumpha was elected Vice-President alongside President Bingu wa Mutharika under the United Democratic Front banner. When Mutharika broke away from the party to form the Democratic Progressive Party, Chilumpha remained in the UDF. The working relationship between the President and the Vice-President collapsed completely, culminating in Chilumpha’s exclusion from state affairs.

In 2006, the executive attempted to declare that Chilumpha had “constructively resigned” through his absence from Cabinet meetings and public criticism of the administration.

In the landmark case of Chilumpha v Attorney General, the High Court decisively upheld the Constitution and rejected the executive’s argument. The court affirmed that an elected constitutional officer cannot “constructively resign” and ordered the full restoration of Chilumpha’s official perks, security, vehicles, and operational funding.

A similar dynamic unfolded between 2009 and 2012 when President Mutharika again fell out with his Vice-President, Joyce Banda. Expelled from the ruling party, Banda resisted demands to resign from government, established the People’s Party from opposition benches, and successfully assumed the Presidency as dictated by Section 83(4) following Mutharika’s sudden death in April 2012—preserving the constitutional order despite intense political pressure to bypass her.

Institutions Over Personalities

It is easy to defend constitutional boundaries when they protect our political allies. The ultimate test of a constitutional democracy is whether we defend those same boundaries when they benefit our political opponents.

When we fought for multiparty democracy, our goal was not merely to change the leaders sitting at Sanjika, Kamuzu Palace, or State House; it was to build an enduring constitutional order governed by the rule of law under the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi.

Presidents will come and go. Ruling parties will win and lose elections. Political alliances will form and fracture. But the Constitution must endure as the fixed anchor of the Republic of Malawi.

If we allow Presidents or political parties to strip elected constitutional Vice-Presidents of their mandate, we abandon the rule of law in favour of political convenience.

The Republic’s Vice-President does not belong to a political party. The Vice-President belongs to the Republic of Malawi—and the Constitution belongs to its people.

• The writer, Ahmed Dassu, is a founding member of the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD), former Chief Advisor to the late Chakufwa Chihana, and a former political detainee under Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s single-party rule.

 

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