Malawi is my country. But I hate it. I don’t hate because of its ranking on the Human Development Index which is appalling though we are pulling up. I hate it because of its politics.

Malawi is a presidential democracy and has been so since the re-introduction of political pluralism in 1994. Democracy promised a lot of things to the southern African country. Unfortunately, it appears the democratic panacea is allergic.

There is a lot of political bickering in the country. The root cause of the current situation, where the “ruling party” Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) and the opposition dominated by United Democratic Front (UDF) and Malawi Congress Party (MCP), is that the so-called ruling party in Malawi headed by incumbent president Bingu wa Mutharika, never took part in 2004 general elections.
The president assumed power through the UDF that got 37 % of the electorate vote. This means that Mutharika had a government of the minority though is essence, democracy is about the majority.

To make matters worse, Mutharika dumped the party that sponsored him into power to form his DPP. The DPP has only 6 elected members of parliament who found their way into the legislature after a By-election landslide victory in 2006. This minority representation has left Malawi vulnerable as the opposition parties continue to exploit their numerical advantage in parliament. Currently, the country is running without a financial budget due to disagreements between the opposition and the ruling party. Of course, parliament has reconvened today for ten days session to pass the budget, but the opposition is still adamant(www.nyasatimes.com/national/932.html).

Now all this is stemming from the fact that the opposition is controlling the legislature ((www.wiki.presidentialism and www.kellog.northwestern.edu/research/fordcenter/document.torvic.051908)www.nyasatimes.com/national/932.html- for info on presidentialism). which is a common phenomenon in presidentialism.

Unfortunately, presidentialism thrives on a dominant ruling party in parliament but the case is different in Malawi. The ruling party is small in parliament. No wonder political propaganda and mudslinging has manifested in my country at the expense of real issues such as the stagnating living standards.

Ref:
(antimuluzi.blogspot.com/2007/07/house-conduct-sickening-by-daily-times.html)