Bingu and DPP‘s Mind-Blowing Victory: Understanding the Results and the Sources of his Power
The Republic of Malawi held its fourth Presidential and Parliamentary elections on the 19th of May, 2009 under the supervision of the Malawi electoral Commission (MEC) chaired by Mrs Anastasia Msosa. This election was of its own kind not only in the manner in which it was conducted (which was characterised by drama as one major presidential contestant-Muluzi got barred from contesting), but also the campaign process, themes and tools as well as the outcome, were by and large quite fascinating. Indeed for those who were found in the middle of their studies, the fun that accompanied this election surely robbed them of their good chunk of precious time. I still vividly remember the despair in the voice of a friend of mine, a student in China, who almost failed to submit his essay on time as he had spent most of his time, listening to Zodiak online radio, to try to acquire a picture of what was going to ensue on the voting day in Malawi. The good news is that he passed, and his party won LoL! Anyway, the purpose of this post is to attempt to delineate Bingu’s win in a bid to help those interested, to understand Bingu’s sources of political strength (besides God of course). This may be important for political purposes among other things, not to mention the fact that voters would be happy to notice that they are noted!
In the first place, the size of Bingu’s victory in the presence of a seemingly powerful opposition alliance is the first I have ever heard of in Africa. Furthermore, the fact that there were no any reported cases of rigging, makes his win even more credible and even more and more wonderful. Bingu’s party, the DPP, won the presidential election with roughly 2,730,630 votes while the MCP/UDF alliance scooped circa 1,270,057, almost 200,000 votes below half of Bingu’s votes. In other words, Bingu’s political capital at the dawn of the 21st of May stood at roughly, 66 % out of the possible 100 %, that is to say, about twice that of MCP/UDF alliance which stood at approximately 30 %. The strong message arising from these figures is that Bingu was voted into power by the entire nation, raising postulates about whether good leadership styles could obliterate the tribal cancer that many of us thought was out to consume our political and everyday lives.
Indeed, even though one could still argue that the few surviving opposition parties do exist in their once-upon-a-time strongholds, serious inroads by DPP are conspicuous, perhaps signalling the beginning of real change. For instance, the people of the central region, home to MCP’s leader, has voted enormously for DPP and for the first time we have witnessed almost the entire Kasungu, Dowa, Ntchisi, Ntcheu and a good part of Mchinji, Salima, Lilongwe and Dedza voting against MCP’s bid to power. Again, despite there being two major parties in the Southern Region, almost all the people (in terms of the districts and/or ethnic backgrounds) of the South have all given Bingu the ok to rule the country.
Going further to look at the national figures, we learn that as far as votes cast are concerned out of the 100 % political muscle/mandate/votes that is given to Bingu, about 46 % were cast by Southerners, 30 % were cast by people at the central region while the remaining 24 % were cast by people of the Northern region. The picture does not change significantly once the number of DPP MPs is used as a proxy for Dr Bingu’s political stamina. This too shows that Bingu has acquired about 46.5 % of his power from the South, 32.5 % of his power has come from the Centre and 21 % of it has come from the Northern region as is shown in the table that follows.
Table 1: MPs won by Parties summarised by Region
north, centr, south, Total,
independent 8, 8, 16, 32,
DPP 24, 37, 53, 114,
MCP 0, 26, 0, 26,
UDF 0, 0, 17, 17,
AFFORD 1, 0, 0, 1,
MAFUNDE 0, 0, 1, 1,
MPP 0, 1, 0, 1,
Total 33, 72, 87, 192,
North, Centr, Sout, Total,
DPPMPs% 21.0, 32.5, 46.5, 100,
At least one of the messages that this conveys to all of us is that Bingu is, just as I have argued earlier on, on my blog (http://www.mfumusaka.blogspot.com/ ), a man loved by almost all, regardless of religion, village of origin, district or region. He is a blessing to all of us and indeed to the nation.
Even at its heyday, UDF was never a powerful party as DPP today. This is not to say that DPP is infallible, rather DPP has risen to strengths that are adorable and I hope, even though it’s difficult to perfectly replicate what Bingu has done, other leaders will seek to understand more about the bonds, bolts and nuts that have led to his political success for the benefit of their own political parties in future, and indeed for the benefit of all of us.
There are many other issues obviously that arise from a comprehensive analysis of the details that are hidden in the figures. This is beyond the scope of this posting. May God bless Bingu wa Mutharika, the visionary Leader of Malawi. May God bless us all. Pano tiyime kaye pompo.
GC Matchaya
http://www.mfumusaka.blogspot.com/
In the first place, the size of Bingu’s victory in the presence of a seemingly powerful opposition alliance is the first I have ever heard of in Africa. Furthermore, the fact that there were no any reported cases of rigging, makes his win even more credible and even more and more wonderful. Bingu’s party, the DPP, won the presidential election with roughly 2,730,630 votes while the MCP/UDF alliance scooped circa 1,270,057, almost 200,000 votes below half of Bingu’s votes. In other words, Bingu’s political capital at the dawn of the 21st of May stood at roughly, 66 % out of the possible 100 %, that is to say, about twice that of MCP/UDF alliance which stood at approximately 30 %. The strong message arising from these figures is that Bingu was voted into power by the entire nation, raising postulates about whether good leadership styles could obliterate the tribal cancer that many of us thought was out to consume our political and everyday lives.
Indeed, even though one could still argue that the few surviving opposition parties do exist in their once-upon-a-time strongholds, serious inroads by DPP are conspicuous, perhaps signalling the beginning of real change. For instance, the people of the central region, home to MCP’s leader, has voted enormously for DPP and for the first time we have witnessed almost the entire Kasungu, Dowa, Ntchisi, Ntcheu and a good part of Mchinji, Salima, Lilongwe and Dedza voting against MCP’s bid to power. Again, despite there being two major parties in the Southern Region, almost all the people (in terms of the districts and/or ethnic backgrounds) of the South have all given Bingu the ok to rule the country.
Going further to look at the national figures, we learn that as far as votes cast are concerned out of the 100 % political muscle/mandate/votes that is given to Bingu, about 46 % were cast by Southerners, 30 % were cast by people at the central region while the remaining 24 % were cast by people of the Northern region. The picture does not change significantly once the number of DPP MPs is used as a proxy for Dr Bingu’s political stamina. This too shows that Bingu has acquired about 46.5 % of his power from the South, 32.5 % of his power has come from the Centre and 21 % of it has come from the Northern region as is shown in the table that follows.
Table 1: MPs won by Parties summarised by Region
north, centr, south, Total,
independent 8, 8, 16, 32,
DPP 24, 37, 53, 114,
MCP 0, 26, 0, 26,
UDF 0, 0, 17, 17,
AFFORD 1, 0, 0, 1,
MAFUNDE 0, 0, 1, 1,
MPP 0, 1, 0, 1,
Total 33, 72, 87, 192,
North, Centr, Sout, Total,
DPPMPs% 21.0, 32.5, 46.5, 100,
At least one of the messages that this conveys to all of us is that Bingu is, just as I have argued earlier on, on my blog (http://www.mfumusaka.blogspot.com/ ), a man loved by almost all, regardless of religion, village of origin, district or region. He is a blessing to all of us and indeed to the nation.
Even at its heyday, UDF was never a powerful party as DPP today. This is not to say that DPP is infallible, rather DPP has risen to strengths that are adorable and I hope, even though it’s difficult to perfectly replicate what Bingu has done, other leaders will seek to understand more about the bonds, bolts and nuts that have led to his political success for the benefit of their own political parties in future, and indeed for the benefit of all of us.
There are many other issues obviously that arise from a comprehensive analysis of the details that are hidden in the figures. This is beyond the scope of this posting. May God bless Bingu wa Mutharika, the visionary Leader of Malawi. May God bless us all. Pano tiyime kaye pompo.
GC Matchaya
http://www.mfumusaka.blogspot.com/
Comments
Post a Comment