Wiseman Chirwa who teaches at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, is SAR's Malawi correspondent.

It is a fact that in the May 17 presidential and parliamentary general elections, Malawians voted for presidential candidates from their own regions . . . Whether the president [Bakili Muluzi] likes it or not, the people of this country have divided themselves through the elections . . .
The Daily Times, Friday July 8, 1994

After 30 years of a one-party autocratic rule under Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Malawi had its first ever presidential and parliamentary general election on 17th May this year, thus marking the re-introduction of a multi-party "democracy." The process of political change had begun in 1992. Then, under pressure from international donors, civil rights movement and institutions of civil society in the country, Dr. Banda called for a referendum in which Malawians would decide whether to continue with a one-party state or adopt a multi-party system of government. The results of the referendum suggested that it was an alliance of the democratic forces in the northern and southern regions of the country that led the multi-party advocates to victory. Of the 444,196 who voted in the referendum in the northern region, 392,569, or about 88.4 per cent, voted for the re-introduction of a multi-party system. In the most populous southern region, the figure was 1,201,195 out of 1,438,371, or about 83.5 per cent, in favour of a multi-party system. In sharp contrast, in the central region the vote was 832,413 out of 1,270,881, or 65.5 per cent, in favour of the continuation of the autocratic one-party system.

Regional differences in voting patterns were again reflected in the presidential and parliamentary general elections this year. Seven parties contested the 177 seats in parliament. Of these, three major ones - the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD), the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), and the United Democratic Front (UDF) - contested the presidency and they were also the only ones to win parliamentary seats. (Prior to the elections, four or five of the smaller parties had aligned themselves with the UDF in what was called a Common Electoral Group, but that did not help them win any seat in parliament.)

According to the Malawi Daily Times, the country's oldest newspaper and its leading one, the results of the election "seem to reflect that people voted for candidates not because of the policies their parties stand for, but rather the region a party leader comes from" [ Daily Times, 19/5/94; 20/5/94; 8/7/94]. This is evidenced by the way voters overwhelmingly favoured presidential candidates from their region. Tom Chakufwa Chihana, a Tumbuka from the north, and presidential candidate for AFORD, scooped up over 85 per cent of the votes from his region, as against his 8 per cent from the centre and 7 per cent from the south. Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the incumbent president, a Chewa from the central region and candidate for the MCP, got nearly 70 per cent of the votes from his region as against 16 per cent from the south, and 9 per cent from the north. And Elson Bakili Muluzi, a Yao from the south, candidate for the UDF, got 75 per cent of the votes from the most populous southern region, as against 23 per cent in the centre and 7 per cent in the north. Some 4,753,152 people out of the country's 1987 population of 9,574,661, or 50 per cent, are from the southern region; 3,728,686, about 39 per cent, from the centre; and 1,092,823, about 11 per cent, from the north. "This state of affairs," argued the Daily Times, "enabled Mr Muluzi to win the elections since most of those who voted for him come from the south."

The results of the parliamentary elections followed the same pattern. Chihana's AFORD swept all the 33 seats in the 5 districts of the north, plus 3 out of 66 in the 9 districts of the centre; and none out of 78 in the 10 districts of the south. The MCP got no seat in the north, 51 in the centre, and only 5 in the south. The UDF won no seat in the north, 12 in the centre, but 73 in the south. This means that AFORD has 36 seats in parliament, the MCP 56 and the UDF 85. Such "regional fragmentation" of the country, according to the Malawi Democrat, is a "national problem, our problem."

The roots of division

Two questions need to be answered here. First, what are the implications of these results for the country's political process? Second, why is it that regional and ethno-linguistic differences came out so clearly in these results?

"Regional fragmentation" has immediate constitutional and parliamentary implications. For example, the UDF, which won the presidential elections, is now a minority government with the two opposition parties in a majority position within the house. However, since the new constitution requires a two-third majority vote for any of its sections to be amended even these two parties acting together could not bring about any meaningful constitutional changes. Nor can the ruling party acting alone do so. In short, amendments would require a joint two-third majority vote drawn from both sides of the house and that will not be easy.

Of more immediate importance is the fact that the ruling party, in a minority position, will find it difficult to have its bills and programmes approved and passed by the house. The opposition has the capacity to vote as a block against bills introduced by the ruling party. If it should happen, it would frustrate the president and his party's members of parliament while also producing the potential danger of political stalemate in the proceedings of parliament, if not in the political process as a whole. This will lead to a weak government that will not be in a position to effectively deliver to the fullest expectations of the Malawian people (and will probably also lose power in the next general elections). One only hopes that the opposition will have the country's interests at heart and avoid being naively obstructive by merely voting along partisan lines at all times.

Of course, on the plus side, the current distribution of seats in parliament does provide the opposition with the means to check the ruling party and the president and reduce the potential for abuse of power. Under such circumstances it will be rather difficult for the UDF and Bakili Muluzi to manipulate the constitution in the way Dr. Banda and his ruling Malawi Congress Party did over the thirty years of one-party rule. It also puts AFORD, the second opposition party, in a very strategic position when it comes to power brokering. It can align itself with either the UDF in government, or the MCP in opposition whenever it feels the necessity of doing so. Both the UDF and the MCP need AFORD to boost their strength in parliament and to create a good popular "national" image outside the house. Given that no party in the country can, as of now, claim to be a national party in the strict sense of the word, there are a lot of possibilities for shifting alliances and instances of power brokering. AFORD holds the trump card in this. (The current alliance between the smaller parties and the ruling UDF does not give the latter any additional strength, a situation that would change only if the smaller parties were eventually to win seats in parliament).

However, mere power-brokering will not solve the ethno- linguistic and regionalist tendencies that define the power bases of the country's major political parties. Such tendencies spring from factors that go beyond political campaigns for presidential or parliamentary office. Five related factors play a key role here.

The poverty of ideology

First, multi-party politics in Malawi, as in Africa in general, suffer from the poverty of ideology. This is a crucial circumstance which permits the highlighting of ethno-linguistic and regional divisions. Where and when there is a clearly articulated ideological contestation, such divisions are overshadowed by ideological struggles. The poverty of ideology is closely linked to the weakness of class identification/consciousness, something which further contributes to the tendency towards parochialism and "primordialism." This poverty of ideology is clearly reflected in the manifestos of the major parties. Conspicuously absent in these are clauses defining the fundamental principles and politico-economic beliefs of the parties.

Second, Malawi is ethnically very diverse. There are more than 25 ethno-linguistic groups in the northern region alone; not less than 5 in the central region; and not less than 7 in the southern region. There is no dominant ethno-linguistic or tribal group, though the Banda regime claimed that the Chewa of the central region, where Dr. Banda comes from, were the country's majority tribe (This claim has no demographic or ethnographic validity.) Because of the country's ethnic diversity, it is difficult to base political mobilization on tribal identity, very narrowly defined. There is instead the need to construct a wider unit (for non-class based) political discourse and mobilization. It is for this reason that the region, a geographical and administrative unit that puts together several districts and ethno-linguistic groups, has become an important unit for competition for political and economic resources. This is where ethno-linguistic and regional identities find their meeting point to the point where it is not now easy to separate the one from the other.

Third, a lot of people in the southern region are second or third generation Malawians. Their ancestors migrated into the country during the colonial period, fleeing vicious Portuguese rule in Mozambique, or coming to work as wage labourers and tenants on the settler plantations of the Shire Highlands in the southern region. These immigrant ethno-linguistic communities now constitute more than half of the southern region's population and probably a quarter or more of the country's overall population. They suffered from a crisis of identity during the colonial period and over the last thirty years of one-party rule when their historical and cultural traditions were deliberately and politically subjugated, by the state, to those of the indigenous groups. With the opening up of the political system, they have begun to assert their "Malawian identity" and to flex their numerical power. Choosing political leaders from their own ethno-linguistic groups is an important way of ensuring for themselves future political dominance in the country's most populous and most urbanized region.

Fourth, over the last thirty years the Banda regime pursued a policy of systematic ethnic discrimination, especially against Malawians of northern origin and, to some extent, against those from selected immigrant ethno-linguistic groups in the southern region. For example, the majority of political detainees were from the north and the south. Politicians and top civil servants from the two regions were frequently dismissed and publicly humiliated often for very trivial reasons. Between the 1970s and early 1990s, the civil service, the university, and important government departments and state-aided parastatal organizations were purged of northerners. And, in 1989, a quota system was introduced in university selection to restrict numbers of northerners attaining higher educational qualifications.** As a result of these policies, many northerners and southerners were resentful of the Banda regime, and, as noted, tended to take the lead (through AFORD and the UDF) in openly challenging it.

The material bases of division

Lastly, the economic imbalances between the regions played an important role in determining the material bases of politicians and their supporters. The north, sparsely populated, is the least developed. Education and wage labour within and outside the country are the major avenues to material accumulation and socio-economic advancement. Higher educational attainment and exposure to the outside world through migrant labour to South Africa and Southern and Northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia) enabled northerners to take the lead in politics during the colonial period. They were also quick to take advantage of their education to move into good positions in the civil service. The centre, fairly populated but relatively behind in terms of literacy rates and educational attainment, is the country's "bread basket." It produces the largest portion of the country's tobacco, the major export crop and foreign exchange earner. The majority of people from the centre are therefore tied to the land and pseudo-traditional forms of rural accumulation play an important role in socio-economic advancement. The south was the centre of the colonial economy. Large numbers of people came to this region from other parts of the country as well as from Mozambique to work on settler plantations and other establishments in the colonial economy. Many of these immigrants permanently settled in the region. Today, the southern region is the most populous and most urbanized. It is here that a small, but noticeable, industrial working class has emerged.

How do these economic imbalances affect the country's major political parties? AFORD is dominated by northern intellectuals, the Presbyterian clergy, and the middle sectors of the civil service, and widely supported by university students and plantation wageworkers. The MCP draws much of its support from the central region farmers, from the middle peasantry and from traditional authorities afraid of losing control over the power derived from traditional institutions and from pseudo-traditional forms of rural accumulation. The UDF is dominated by the southern region business people - Malawi's national bourgeoisie - urban employers, and the lumpenproletariat. What this means is that the power bases of these parties are closely linked to ethno-linguistic and regional identities on the one hand, and to the economic characteristics of their leaders and inner core supporters on the other. In this way, ethnicity and ethno-linguistic identities assume a class basis (albeit an all too hidden one) and are used rather manipulatively as social and political ideologies by those - most often the bourgeoisie and/or petit-bourgeoisie - who advocate them and seek thereby to advance their own interests.

Prospects

If this combination of factors continues to prevail, it will be very difficult for presidential candidates from poor and minority regions such as the north to win, no matter what merits they might have. More generally, one way forward would be to create class alliances that cut across ethno-linguistic and regional identities. As seen, this is limited both by the present "poverty of ideology" and by the economic and educational imbalances between the country's three regions. These latter lead, in turn, to various imbalances, to differences in class formation and identification and in political consciousness and motivation. Under such circumstances, the progressive alliance that might most plausibly be forged is that between the clergy and intellectuals on one hand and the urban lumpen proletariat, and industrial and plantation workers on the other, this alliance then campaigning on the platform of workers' rights and economic and social justice for the underclasses, including peasants. In a country where the rural and urban poor constitute more than 90 per cent of the population, the adoption of such a populist political platform would appeal to many and would be a good way of dealing with regional and ethno-linguistic divisions. This would also represent the first step toward the construction of a class-based ideological identity for the majority of Malawians. Without this, they will be left, by the present advocates of multi-partyism, with no vision of the kind of society that might be constructed in Malawi, and some danger that the country's divisions will become even sharper and more perilous.

===============================================

** Prior to 1989, the northern region, with just about 11 per cent of the country's population, accounted for half of university entrants - thanks to the higher quality of schools established in the region by Scottish Presbyterian missionaries during the colonial period. With the quota system each district was guaranteed 10 places in the university, and should there be any spaces remaining, they were occupied according to population distribution. Given that the north has 5 sparsely populated districts, against 9 in the centre and 10 in the south, it meant a major reduction in the numbers of northerners making it through to university.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s) and not do necessarily reflect the views of the AfricaFiles' editors and network members. They are included in our material as a reflection of a diversity of views and a variety of issues. Material written specifically for AfricaFiles may be edited for length, clarity or inaccuracies.

     top of page