The Middle-Man Politics
If you go to Limbe market, Blantyre or Malangalanga, Lilongwe right now, you will meet boys volunteering to take you to the best place to buy spare parts for your car. If you were a novice, you’d tag along and be thankful for the kind gesture.
What you don’t know is that these boys have established business relationships as middle-men for the owners of those shops. Their job is to get potential customers in exchange for commission.
They also get a few kwachas as ‘thank you’ from the customers they have ‘helped’.
This system is called ojiya. [The middle-man hustle]
Political economists have designed the supply and demand framework to explain how government works. The office of the citizen which is touted as the highest office in a democracy makes a demand of good governance. Thus, it is the job of the elected to supply it.
However, I find that the suppliers maneuver the choice of demand to suit the inventory that they are willing to offer. Consequently, this is where the middle-man comes in. And do they do a fine job!
Peter Mutharika could not win his second tenure because Malawians voted for Lazarus Chakwera. The veil of what transpired only started to fall off after President Chakwera plunged Malawi’s economy. In fact, recent statement made by fmr. RBM Gov. Dalitso Kabambe points to the fact that Malawians were deceived into rejecting APM at the 2020 polls.
News of insecurity were amplified. The 2019 mass protests, led by actors, influencers and people who hitherto hadn’t commented on Malawi’s political situation was the climax.
The PR was turbo-charged against fuel subsidy and the economy. Even though, Malawi’s GDP grew by over 7% during the time- one of the best we have witnessed till date. Yet, even the educated were swayed and deceived by these PR stunts.
There was a machinery influencing public opinion. Backed by fat accounts, they leveraged the media, rallied protesters, amplified bad news and pumped lies in the faces of Malawians. This is the job of the middle-man. The most dangerous chain in the political-economic framework of a democracy.
The media and CSOs shipped a strategy called ‘Reputation Management’ to pacify Malawians into believing that a smooth-talking church pastor was what Malawi needed—a strict disciplinarian who would tackle corruption. It worked. Even educated Malawians forgot that the smooth-talking preacher’s only leadership experience was running a church for the past 24 years.
This time, with a fraudulent election and unjust judgment delivery by courts, the protest leaders’ business is to influence Malawians to ‘move on’ or ‘prepare for 2025 elections’. They perfectly do the mind-bending work of turning the minds of Malawians against protests. They claim there are better strategies than protests. Strategies that haven’t worked for 59 years now.
They run justifications for Malawians who choose to work directly with a President from a fraudulent election as being ‘pragmatic’. That the only way to achieve success in sub-sectors is to ‘pretend’ to kiss the ring. And that people should ‘put the interest of Malawi above emotional sentiments’.
Only that this is false as usual. That people who compromise on character, truth and principle do not, as a matter of fact, have any noble intentions. They perform the political-social climbing in the full glare of the gullible citizens who clap for their bravery to work (even when there’s no evidence) with the corrupt lot, to achieve results-tangible results that never come.
Twist, bend, turn the truth. The truth is the truth. But, it appears that the office of the citizen is yet to become fully aware of operations of the benders of truth. What makes them the most dangerous is that they look, dine, speak, live with the citizens but in fact, work with the government.