Muluzi walks to freedom
BY JOSEPH KAYIRA | JULY 15, 2023
Muluzi’s long-awaited freedom from his corruption case has raised queries with lawyers and political commentators wondering whether or not it points to failure to prosecute or it is the new administration’s way of wooing a sympathy vote at the 2025 polls.
Former president Bakili Muluzi is off the hook in the K1.7 billion ($12 million) corruption case after the High Court of Malawi in Blantyre discharged him on 29 May this year. The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) issued an order to discontinue the case which has dragged for over 14 years. The funds, which came to the impoverished southern African nation of 18 million as aid from Taiwan, Morocco and Libya, ended up in Muluzi’s personal bank account, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) said.
The discontinuance of the case has divided legal minds and rights activists – with some saying it points to the country’s failure to prosecute high profile corruption cases. Others say the state wasted resources on a politically motivated matter which is not prosecutable. Muluzi himself has denied any wrong doing, saying the case was trumped up for political reasons.
In a new twist of events, others now purport, President Lazarus Chakwera’s Tonse Alliance administration – a grouping of nine political parties – could be sending a message to the United Democratic Front (UDF), which Muluzi chairs and founded back in the early 1990s, to consider going to bed with the governing alliance.
A source privy to Muluzi and the UDF said the “good gesture” from Chakwera’s government could be rewarded at some point – especially when parties start forming electoral alliances next year. It will not be the first time Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the UDF will be in a marriage of convenience.
In 2009, the MCP provided a presidential candidate and the UDF a running mate in the presidential poll. It was after the court had ruled against Muluzi’s wish to stand, yet again, after Parliament had also rejected his third term bid back in 2003. In that election, the MCP provided veteran politician John Tembo and the UDF came up with former information minister, Brown Mpinganjira.
It was a last-minute arrangement which did not benefit both sides. Commentators said it was Muluzi’s desperate move to hit back at Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Bingu wa Mutharika abandoned, who abandoned the UDF after winning the 2004 general elections. Muluzi’s attempt was ill-timed because Mutharika won the presidential poll with a landslide, winning parliamentary seats even in the Central Region, the perceived stronghold of the MCP.
Our source says this time around, the relations between the two parties are much warmer. Apart from the Muluzi’s freedom, Chakwera has appointed him and former president Mrs Joyce Banda – as Cyclone Freddy goodwill ambassadors.
“If you will recall, the MCP has been in the forefront calling for Muluzi’s freedom. When Chakwera was leader of opposition this issue came up. He expressed his disappointment at how the corruption case had been delayed and wanted Muluzi freed. Chakwera’s current minister of Health Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda too told Parliament that it was ideal to let Muluzi go in this case.
“Muluzi’s son, Atupele has been asked to lead the UDF. In view of the coming elections, Chakwera is playing a smart game. He is likely not going to remain in the Tonse Alliance with his vice Saulos Chilima and UTM Party. Muluzi’s freedom will come with its rewards; and that reward means the UDF will form an electoral alliance with the MCP,” the source said.
The UDF itself has not committed itself to any electoral alliance or political coalition with any party. In the 2020 court sanctioned presidential election, it formed an electoral alliance with the DPP where Atupele was running mate to Peter Mutharika.
“As of now we are a stand alone one party. We are not in alliance with any party,” Yusuf Mwawa, UDF spokesperson said.
But Muluzi’s freedom comes as a blow to the State, and a lesson to future leaders to avoid using politics to settle their personal political differences. Two directors general at the ACB – Reyneck Matemba and Lucas Kondowe – had indicated that Muluzi’s matter was not prosecutable. Matemba suggested that the case needed a political solution.
Politicians, commentators and the quasi-religious body, Public Affairs Committee (PAC) have all suggested that a political solution could have put the matter to rest and save public resources that have been wasted on the case. In 2001, PAC asked government to drop Muluzi’s corruption charges arguing the case was going nowhere.
Muluzi’s lawyers said it was not surprising that their client has been freed. One of the lawyers Tamando Chokotho said it was obvious the case could not be concluded due to lack of evidence.
The Nation newspaper of Tuesday, May 30, 2023 quoted Chokotho as saying: “For those that have been following the case, when we had crossed-examined [former ACB assistant director] Victor Banda, the main investigator in the matter, he mentioned the fact that had it been that he had properly investigated all issues, he would not have arrested Dr Muluzi.”
But Professor Danwood Chirwa, a lecturer at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, hinted that the director of public prosecutions’ decision to discontinue the case is a clear indication of failure to prosecute what he described as high-profile cases.
He said the ACB had become a toothless bulldog and that the decision to discontinue the case means that those who wield power and influence “will be tolerated and left unpunished at great expense to Malawians.”
“This institution, [ACB] has truly become a toothless bulldog. The discontinuance shows, once again, that corruption by those at the top will be tolerated and left unpunished, at great expense to Malawians. This is why every government is engulfed in unending cycles of looting, corruption and embezzlement. As chances of accountability range from minimal to zero, there is no disincentive to such bad behaviour,” Chirwa told one of Malawi’s dailies, The Nation.
The genesis of Muluzi’s troubles
Taking over from Malawi’s founding president Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda in 1994, Muluzi was a democratic era hero. He steered Malawi into greater democratic freedoms, values and civil liberties.
During his time, Non-Governmental Organisations and Civil Society Organisations mushroomed giving hope that Malawi was on a path to entrench its hard-won democracy and multiparty politics.
Muluzi was reelected in 1999 amidst anger and disbelief from the opposition. His second term was punctuated by crime, inflation unemployment. This was worsened by his ambition to change the constitution and run for a third term. For a better part of his days in office during his second term, Muluzi kept an official silence on whether or not he wanted to stay on in power. having built cronyism around himself, it was his lieutenants who drummed up support for his third term bid, which was rejected by Parliament.
He publicly accepted defeat after a bid to run for a controversial third term was rejected by legislators. The UDF was divided with its youth wing, the Young Democrats went on rampage beating up everyone who did not agree with Muluzi’s intentions. In a bid to hit back at senior officials in the party who wanted to replace him, Muluzi picked little known economist, Bingu wa Mutharika as the UDF’s presidential candidate in the 2004 presidential election.
Mutharika would later resign from the UDF accusing its officials of corruption. He arrested key UDF officials, including Muluzi accusing him of embezzlement. He formed the Democratic Progressive Party in 2005 promising to root out corruption the public service and that “there would be no sacred cows in the fight against corruption.”
He dropped dead in office on April 5, 2012 aged 78, after suffering a cardiac arrest. Vice president Joyce Banda took over as president in line with a constitutional provision that mandates the vice president to take over when the president is incapacitated or dead.
Chakwera and future alliances
This time around, the road to State House or Plot No 1 will be interesting, especially with the 50+1 threshold which would determine who wins the presidential race.
There are cracks in the Tonse Alliance – especially with the arrest of Vice President Saulos Chilima who the ACB says received $280,000 and other items from a British businessman. Chilima is accused of using connections with senior public officials and politicians to fraudulently obtain contracts to supply goods and services in favour of Mr Zuneth Sattar’s companies. He had already been stripped of his powers in June last year when he was first accused by the Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Under the circumstances, political commentators predict that it is unlikely that Chakwera and Chilima would pair again in 2025. It means the ruling coalition would seek new partners.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has said Chakwera faces a bumpy ride. It has predicted MCP loss and mass protests as the Tonse Alliance struggles to deal with fuel and food shortages.
The EIU reports released in June says “Mr Chakwera will therefore continue to lead a minority government with limited support from other members of the governing Tonse Alliance [such as the Tonse Alliance of Vice President Saulos Chilima and the People’s Party of former president Joyce Banda], owing to infighting about succession issues.
“The parliamentary and presidential elections are due in September 2025 at thenext polls, Mr Chakwera and the MCP face probable defeat, as the Tonse Alliance is disintegrating, owing to internal strife.”
The report says Mr Chakwera’s anti-corruption fight is now viewed by external observers as a charade, especially following the arrest of ACB director.
“We expect a lack of political will to stifle efforts to root out corruption, worsening relations with major Western donors,” the EIU report says.
A political scientist says the 2025 polls will be choiceless elections.
“Either people will stay away from the vote or that opens room for a third political party that could be a major player, one that doesn’t have the baggage of the Tonse Alliance or DPP. But whichever case, there is higher likelihood that the 2025 polls will go into a second round,” University of Malawi associate professor of political science, Boniface Dulani told a popular daily paper here.
That third political party Dulani is talking about could be Muluzi’s UDF. And that is how Muluzi’s freedom will influence the 2025 presidential poll.
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