Why Joyce Banda is preferred in popularity stakes
Analysing comments of ‘Have Your Say’ on the President of Malawi beyond 2014 carried on Nyasa Times underline a very fundamental point that must never be ignored.
That point is that life is functional and as such people’s choices are fickle – they change according to the changing dynamics in the determinants of those choices.
As such political players must always remain vigilant to ensure that their policies are always refined to rhyme with the changing needs of the people as each day passes.
This should surely be the reason that President Joyce Banda, who has been portrayed to have fared poorly in previous polls conducted by other media organizations, has done well in this one.
Should she and her team continue to respond to the needs of the people, it will provide the difference between her victory and failure of her opponents.
Politics has an interesting character – does not respect smiths and executors of rhetoric. It repays those that actualize their speeches with concrete action.
This has been the facet of President Joyce Banda’s presidency – action packed!
She inherited a bleeding economy; she did not just express awe and fold her arms in aghast of blame and finger-pointing.
President Joyce Banda straightway took the economy to the dressing room, treated the wounds and bandaged them.
Today, some wounds have fully healed, while others are steadily healing – the point being that the economy has been nursed back to health.
She took office when the image of the country had been soiled badly and its character was emitting repugnant stench to both our friends (neighbourly and afar) and cooperating partners.
It is that disgusting ordour in foreign relations and international accepted practices that clogged the taps of aid to Malawi, suffocating the economy as a result.
President Banda, mounting steel to her resolve and firing the engines of speed to her actions, took the image of Malawi to the laundries of our disappointed friends and partners where it was rinsed clean.
Today Malawi is an immaculate self again, being competed for by a cross-section of suitors.
During her presidency, Dr. Banda has repaired the bridges between State House and the common people, just as she has clogged the hemorrhaging of public confidence in the Office of the President.
Today, the presidency is typically of the people, for the people and by the people.
This is where President Banda rhymes with the people.
As the economy continues to recover, so will the pockets of the people continue to regain their disposable incomes, which had hitherto being absorbed by the sins of the past.
The incomes will not just cover subsistence spending of the households, but will enable them to invest into small enterprises, enabling the people to generate incomes that will normalize their cash flows.
In equal measure, industry, that had hitherto hibernated, is resurrecting bringing the assurance of an expanded circle of tax base and broadened frontiers of job opportunities – elements that are critical to economic growth and wealth creation.
Besides, President Banda has also been vigilant with initiatives that provide social safety nets that hedge the people, especially the wretched of them, against the unpredictability of the social-economic dynamics.
Another revelation of the survey gives credence to the maxim that “by trying to have everything, you lose everything.”
The combined results for the opposition leaders are more than those of President Banda.
This is to say that the greed among the opposition leaders, by not uniting behind a single candidate, may cost them the presidency.
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