Muluzi whatever his intentions were, thought of being with Bingu for a much longer if not all the way of his presidency. Whatever his motivations were he felt that the intentions were betrayed and crushed underfoot by Bingu's quitting of the party. It is clear bitterness had been generated in Muluzi. He attempted to contest himself despite the constitution barring him. Upon being turned down by the Electoral Commission, Muluzi has spared no possible (not necessarily un-contradictory or unethical) alternatives to dislodge Bingu. He had done everything to have Bingu elected. It is no secret that Bingu has no public speaking appeal to woo the masses as Muluzi is renowned for. Political commentators and all have hailed Muluzi's skill in persuasion of the masses. I have a different outlook. I agree Muluzi has tonnes of jokes and knows how to come down on the ground and connect with the unknown nobody on the ground. It is the content of Muluzi's persuasion that throws a fly into the ointment.
In his selling of Bingu, Muluzi went to lengths describing how unsuitable one of Bingu's major contenders John Tembo. Tembo has now become Muluzi's friend. Yet in 2004 Muluzi described an image of a Tembo to be like that of a one immunised from mercy and all humanity, one who personally executed gruesome atrocities against the then one party regime’s dissidents. More times than can be remembered he told all those who cared for Malawi and the characteristics of her political leaders that even though they did not like his promoted candidate (Bingu) they had no moral basis to have the preference of Tembo as their main reason. The man told us that Tembo's hands were dripping with not water or hope but ........... shed by the murdered victims. Actually he had a tape he used to play about how cruel Tembo had been. Those that thought that this was an anomaly and unethical put it to the president that he had to desist from making such slanderous remarks seeing that the courts had acquitted Tembo and that if he had new evidence the ethical duty he had was to make a fresh case in court. Could Muluzi have any of that? So concerned was he about the welfare of Malawi that he retorted later that the fact that the courts have acquitted you is no sign that you are innocent. So said Muluzi and so believed him the people.
Five years later in his bitterness with Bingu Muluzi has afforded the rare audacity of rebranding Tembo as the only appropriate leader to replace Bingu. It should be clear that as far as I am concerned, John Tembo is an innocent man since he was acquitted. My citing of these graphic and crude matters which are to my discomfort too is to reveal what we are perceived to be by other people. I should not be vague here, I find those that follow Muluzi, and they are many, very surprising and acting strange to me. Not that I have a problem with their supporting or following Muluzi. Not at all. What I cannot understand is the failure of them in the course of their following Muluzi to demand and obtain a reconciliation of facts and truths, and ultimately the motives driving their party. For one thing when you compare the reasons Muluzi is against Bingu and those he levelled against Tembo, common sense and intuitions tell us that Bingu should be a lesser evil than the other. Bingu has chiefly among others been accused of being ungrateful by the Muluzi side. Ungratefulness is something you can cope with than terminating people's lives. I wonder that those that follow Muluzi are not demanding an account for this sudden turn of events that shocks reality. Well, may be I am the one who is out of step with common sense and logic. The simple question I am asking is what has happened to the virtue of truth which seems to either be sidelined or trampled as though this has no moral cost?
Some quarters have responded by claiming that in politics this is the norm. You have no permanent friends or enemies. Wait a minute. Is this an absolute principle like the laws of nature? Why should we submit ourselves to this notion when all it is brooding over are malice, bitterness, and selfish motives? This tells me how politicians perceive us. We do not deserve truth and honesty. They can cheat us and not only go away with it but also with our blind and non-inquisitive loyalty. We applaud them. We are not that ethical enough to jealously guard against some cherished values we would not want even our dearest kith and kin trample underfoot. Then suddenly we wonder and complain at the institutionalization of corruption and fraud in public institutions. Somehow so it seems we miraculously convince ourselves that there is no link between honesty, truth, (or their absence) and corruption. We somehow believe that one can publicly and systematically contradict the truth and in private prudently manage public resources when there is a weak or just no mechanism that would hold him accountable.
Personalities matter a lot to our society than some lasting principles that hold a decent and noble society together. A society or community that condones such ethical contradiction as demonstrated by Muluzi makes me sad. I sympathize with all those who follow Bingu because he is Bingu. Those that go wherever Tembo will go. Those that are ready to live by Muluzi's whims albeit ethically contradictory. I of course do not want them to have an ethical outlook as mine. They have theirs and I respect them for their outlook. Yet I sympathise with them with what I understand to be against common sense morality. I am not too sure whether this is common between us. But the fault could be with me I also suppose. Perhaps ethics has zero relevance in the legitimacy of our institutions in today's society. May be we all should obey the artificial but conventional law that in politics you have no permanent enemy or friend. In other words we should also accept whatever it is that the law brings along with it. May be I am the odd one out. If it so be, still changing my outlook I will not. I will rather proudly remain the odd one out in the modern Malawi of no permanent political friends or foes.
