President Arthur Peter Mutharika campaigned on a ‘Return to Proven Leadership’. On average, the panel awarded the President a 64.5 percent rating, signalling broad appeal for his brand of leadership, but still with significant negative sentiments that may reflect dissatisfaction with how Mutharika handled certain decisions during the period under review. We also asked the panelists to explain their ratings with examples wherever possible on issues covering what were considered voters’ most pressing issues during the campaign.
These issues included economic management, agriculture and food security, corruption, climate change, energy, education, health, governance and rule of law—people’s concerns around which the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) built its winning manifesto. Of the 10 panellists, three gave the President a rating of eight; one scored him seven, three gave Mutharika a six, one handed him 5.5 and two rated the Malawian leader five out of 10. Signs that the economy is stabilising such as falling inflation driven by softening staple grain maize prices, a marked improvement in the availability of fuel buoyed by the President’s quick wins on manifesto implementation, are helping Mutharika sustain people’s confidence in him.
Educationist Limbani Nsapato noted that the President’s rapid implementation of free secondary education, his moves to scrap fees and other barriers in primary education to make it truly free and prioritising construction of Mombera University with Second Vice-President Enock Chihana as implementation lead, are not just straight out of the DPP manifesto, but also show the strategic ingenuity of Mutharika’s leadership style. But Nsapato said the President should have better handled redeployments of public officers, including chief executives of statutory bodies and senior technocrats, especially those sent to teach in public education institutions when they do not have requisite qualifications and experience to serve as academics. For others, though, delays in making crucial appointments, hiring of people answering criminal charges, weak implementation of austerity measures, including how First Vice President Jane Ansah’s private trip to the United Kingdom was handled, are troubling.
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Boniface Dulani, Associate Professor of political science at the University of Malawi (Unima), said Mutharika’s delays in appointing a full Cabinet and parastatal boards did not support the promise he made that he would hit the ground running once elected. “Appointments of individuals answering various criminal charges into Cabinet and senior government positions suggests a leader who is placing loyalty and partisanship above the interests of the country,” he said.
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