Mpasu says Malawi parties need to be institutionalised

Former Speaker of the National Assembly Sam Mpasu has said Malawi parties need to be institutionalised if democracy is to be consolidated in the country.

Mpasu decried in an interview on Daybreak Malawi programme on Capital FM on Monday that political parties in the country are mostly personalised by the leader or founder syndrome.

“We should institutionalise our political parties,” said Mpasu.

He said the trend in Malawi so far is that party founders are only interested to handover leadership mantle to “a brother or a son”.

Apparently, he was referring to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which is led by President Peter Mutharika and he inherited it from his brother, late Bingu wa Mutharika while United Democratic Front (UDF) of former president Bakili Muluzi is led by Minister of Home Affairs, Atupele Muluzi.

Aford of pro-democracy hero Chakufwa Chihana is now being led by his son Enoch Chihana, MP.

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) is led by Lazarous Chakwera who took over leadership from John Tembo after his retirement. It was a transfer of leadership without connection to relationship.

Mpasu said parties in Malawi are run like “dynasties”.

He said institutionalisation is positively correlated with the consolidation of democracy and good for stability of interparty competition citing Frelimo of Mozambique and Tanzania where parties have a large bureaucracy, extensive branch network and influential mid-ranking leaders which has seen successful succession plan of leaders.

Mpasu said personalised parties are likely to have gross abuses of power and destabilising succession battles.

“That’s why people leave presidency as billionaires,” said Mpasu in apparent reference to cashgate corruption scandal that leaders in the country are endemic to.

He also argued that some of current problems in Malawi are due to the lack of ideology in the parties.

Commenting on Daybreak Malawi programme, politician –cum-analyst Humphrey Mvula bemoaned that politics in Malawi is no longer about serving the people but self-enrichment.

He observed that Malawian parties are “issue pushers” and by that unsystematic.