Muluzi has a case to answer: Why did he pick Mutharika
Most Malawians still vividly remember the very serious campaign that Bakili Muluzi embarked upon from April, 2003 to April, 2004 for Bingu wa Mutharika to be elected as President. He reapetedly told Malawians that what the country needed was an economic engineer.
It is now when Malawians are facing numerous problems never experienced since 1964 when the country became independent that Malawians are now trying to find out the basis upon which Muluzi concluded that Bingu is an economic engineer if not an economic destroyer. Certainly it cannot be Bingu’s stint as Secretary General of COMESA as he was sacked by the 22 countries in 1997 due to dismal performance. You do not fire a person who is performing. .Furthermore all 22 could not have been motivated by jealousy to boot out Bingu from COMESA. It is the twists of life that Bingu is now the Chairman of COMESA, an organisation that sacked him in 1997.
Muluzi singlehandidly picked Bingu to be UDF Presidential candidate in 2004 after his attempts to go for a 3rd term as president miserably flopped.
Bingu went on to win the elections as state president on the back of UDF. Whatever plans or secret deals Muluzi had for choosing Bingu did not bear fruit. Bingu not only badly humiliated Muluzi by ditching the UDF and forming DPP but he also put Muluzi on trial for corruption. The ultimate benefit Muluzi may get from helping Bingu to be president may be a long spell of persecution.
As Bingu seemed to perform between 2004 and 2009 amid a majority opposition bitter that he had run away with the fruits of winning an election-that is the presidency Malawians could not know his true colours. Malawians therefore gave Bingu a landslide victory in 2009 hoping that he would do much more for them without a difficulty opposition.
Well what Malawians now have are draconian bad laws, economic hardship and a dictatorial government. Bingu the fake economic engineer defied the IMF and donors when he knows that Malawi is too poor to defy donors. As a result donors are withholding more than 800million US Dollar in aid thereby plunging Malawi into a serious economic crisis never seen since 1964 when Malawi became independent. Tobacco farmers in millions have been thrown into poverty because of the collapse of tobacco prices in 2011 partly caused by the bashing and public humiliation of tobacco buyers by Bingu.
Muluzi , who is now a desperate man trying to regain the presidency which he carelessly gave to Bingu through his son Atupele Muluzi, knew that Bingu is not a performer as he was sacked when Muluzi was chairman of COMESA in 1997. May be Muluzi picked Bingu because he may have known that Bingu would punish Malawians on his behalf for having rejected his bid for a 3rd term. Malawians are indeed being puninshed and if this was indeed Muluzi’s reason for picking Bingu then he is doing a good job for the former president,
Muluzi therefore has a case to answer to Malawians for enabling Bingu to become the dictator of Malawi.
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