John Tembo’s refusal to accept the outcome of the 19th May presidential election has more to do with his past rather than him being a bad loser. This is a man who perhaps dreamed of being president of Malawi long before Bakili Muluzi and Bingu wa Munthariks entertained such ambition. He was Kamuzu Banda’s baby boy. He could do no wrong.
That dream might yet come true one day, but it has to be said that Mr Tembo will be 82 years old when he will get another chance to have a go at it. Kumuzu contested when he was well in his 90’s and I do not think age would deter Tembo either, he is a pride man. However, I think his party, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) will, and rightly so. If MCP is to survive they need a change in leadership, perhaps with the likes of Tembo and Louis Chimango on advisory role.
This is the challenge that Tembo is facing; and there are interesting days ahead, especially with cracks that have already started to appear within MCP. For instance, after the elections Mr Tembo called a press conference at his residence in Lilongwe where he told the gathered members of the media that he was not going to accept the outcome of the elections. Tembo’s argument was that it was impossible for Mutharika to win even in the districts that for a long time have been MCP’s strongholds. Thus, Tembo argued that the elections had been rigged.
The following day however, MCP’s spokesperson, Ishmael Chafukira told a local radio that his party had accepted the outcome of the elections and that that MCP had been beaten “hands down.” Chafukira assured Malawians that his party would support Mutharika and his administration. Chafukira went on to observe that people had enough of the “tired leadership” of MCP and called for a change of leadership in the party.
On the face of it, I think Tembo mis-judged the public mood by refusing to accept the elections results; he perhaps thought his supporters would take to the streets in protest. It turned out that his supporters understood the situation better than him. In fact, the only other people to have protested are Loveness Gondwe (a presidential candidate) and Tembo’s running mate, Brown Mpinganjira. Both failed to win even parliamentary seats in their own home districts. Roughly, there are three factors that Mr Tembo should have taken into considerations before jumping into conclusions based on rather bizarre conspiracy theory of rgging.
First, it is pretty easy for anyone to understand Mutharika’s victory given the number of parliamentary seats that his party has won. At the time of election results announcement, Mutharika’s party had a total of 91 seats against MCP’s 25, Tembo's running-mate, Mpinganjira failed to win even a parliamentary seat; and with such catastrophic record, it is rather difficult to see how Tembo and Mpinganjira would have been expecting to win the national vote.
Secondly, it is pointless for Mr Tembo to cling on to the past voting patterns as it is clear that this time the people of Malawi purely voted on merit and not reputations, regions, ethnicity, religions, and so on. Mr Tembo know just as well as everyone that this is the first time that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) were contesting in a national election therefore it is illogical to assume that the party had won seats in the regions that were strongholds of other parties. Indeed Mr Tembo would testify that for the first time Mangochi and Machinga voted for him.
The third indicator that Mr Tembo should have taken into account is the number of independent parliamentarians that have succeeded, many of which are first timers. Indeed, most of these new comers have succeeded at the expense of more established and experienced politicians such as George Ntafu, Heatherwick Ntaba, Gwanda Chakuamba, Loveness Gondwe, Louis Chimango, Friday Jumbe, Brown Mpinganjira, etc. These are factors that every interested individual, including the MCP itself, has noticed and yet Mr Tembo has decided to ignore it.
I think Tembo’s main problem is that he is a spoiled man. For a better part of his career he never had to earn anything, everything was given and granted to him by Kamuzu. Out of a sudden the corner has turned and Tembo has found himself in a political system where positions of power have to be earned. One cannot question Tembo’s experience at the top level, he served as a governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi for 13 years and he was, at some point, a chairman of more than five corporations. Yet all these positions were appointed, he never had to compete with anyone for it.
One would point out that Tembo has won parliamentary seats every time he has contested; this is true. What is also true however is that in his home district of Dedza, he has never really faced any opposition worthy pointing at. People vote for him regardless, that is why he is a frustrated man at the national level. He expected the same elsewhere.
If Tembo is the man he thinks he is, he must show that by organising his own MCP and find new leaders within. He could not find a running mate within the party this time and that is why he resorted to Mpinganjira, an outsider. Did this alienated MCP supporters to vote for the independents? It is hard to say; but Mr Tembo must stop living in the past and embrace the present, Malawi is a democracy and positions have to be earned. Gone are the days when positions were granted on reputation alone; people are craving for action and they will push for it the only way they know how: voting.