ESARP

State of democracy

The Malawian parliament is dominated by the opposition. However, no single party or block can amass the two-thirds majority needed to pass bills. As a result, there is need for consensus building and cooperation.

Political turmoil

In June the Supreme Court of Appeal validated a prior decision of the lower court that prohibited floorcrossing by members of parliament. Consequently, more than 50 MPs who had crossed the floor lost their seats, leaving the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of President Bingu wa Mutharika without any MPs. The President trashed the Supreme Court decision. Due to this issue the parliament was suspended once in June and again in September. Since then, parliament has not convened.

Court battles over the nomination of members of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has caused significant delays in preparations for the 2009 general elections, not to mention the local government elections, which are already overdue.


Weak parties

The institutionalization of the political parties is hindered by a lack of resources. Currently, only the MCP and the United Democratic Front (UDF) receive public funding because the constitution says that only those parties that contribute at least 10% to the national assembly are entitled to such.

Another challenge facing political parties in Malawi is negative public opinion. To regain trust, political parties have to tackle such issues as corruption or violence in the party, poverty and underdevelopment; they must also enhance intra-party democracy by advocating open and transparent ways of selecting trustworthy candidates. In addition, they must deliver on promises they make during election campaigns.

NIMD Programme

Improving the political system

In Malawi, NIMD cooperates with the Centre for Multi Party Democracy Malawi (CMD-M) One of CMD-M’s objectives is to prevent political conflicts from turning into violence . Therefore, CMD-M has been working on a draft paper on conflict management strategies and a code of conduct for the member parties of CMD-Malawi. Both drafts will be discussed at the annual General Assembly in 2008.

Strengthening the political parties

The Leadership Development Programme was one of the main activities that CMD-M had undertaken in 2007. This training programme targets district party leaders of all the political parties participating in CMD-M; all three regions of Malawi were covered. One of the major achievements of this training programme is that lower party cadres learned that rival parties can still work together to improve the performance of the political system. An offshoot of this cross-party forum is that it helps curb interparty violence.

Leadership Development Training

Politics is one of the few professions that people enter without any requisite qualifications. One can be a farmer, a lawyer, or engineer and the next day become a senior politician. Obviously, this is positive insofar as it relates to diversity within the political representation, but it also creates a challenge when people are elected to public office and leadership positions without adequate preparation and education. Realizing this shortfall, the Centre for Multiparty Democracy – Malawi (CMD-M) organized a Leadership Development Training aimed at regional and district party leaders.

This training course took place in November 2007 and covered all three administrative regions, targeting all the political districts of Malawi. Among other topics, the training course covered politics, power and democracy; the Malawi political system; political parties and their functions in a democracy. Participants in the training course included regional and district party chairpersons.

One major achievement of the course is that it took place in a cross-party forum. As such, it was impressed upon the participants that even rival parties can still work together for the betterment of political society. An offshoot of such cross-party forums is that if encouraged, they can serve to curb interparty rivalry. A case in point was a request by participants for CMD-M to carry out this type of training for the top leadership, because they believe that most of the political instability is fuelled by the positions taken by top party leaders.