Mutharika should show statesmanship, call Chakwera and ensure smooth Malawi power handover

The writing is on wall. It’s over for President Peter Mutharika. He has lost elections and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera, has won.

The die, as they say, is cast.

We at Nyasa Times feel this is not the time for Mutharika to be politicking around using a loud and suspicious silence. No.

This is the time Mutharika must—before  Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) Chairperson Justice Dr Chifundo Kachale speaks—show he is a level headed person.

This is the time he must prove he loves this country beyond benefiting from it as a leader.

This is the time he must stand up, show Malawians that he respects their will—the will that he no longer have their consent.

Elsewhere, where Mutharika taught for over 40 years, this is the time John Mc Cain, in 2008, picked up a phone and made a gracious call to Barack Obama.

The honour in such a call is that it proves you understand the tenets of democracy—that in the race for political power, there are winners and losers; it is how the game works.

Make no mistake.

Forget the piles of criticism against Mutharika; he will rank as one of the best temperate leaders Malawi has ever had.

The past two years has seen a tense level of populism the country has never seen. The stakes were high for Mutharika to press a button that would have seen this nation in flames.

Mutharika maintained his greatest apex of coolness that, despite the waves of protest, the country never went in flames. History won’t forget this and, arguably, that is the greatest legacy that Mutharika will leave us with.

The only way he can protect it, at this critical juncture, is for him to show he is a statesman.

That is only possible if he can, now, do this: Pick up the phone, make a gracious call to Chakwera and, eventually, smoothen the process of handing over power.

History is about how you end—not how you began and walked.

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