Analysis: UTM has two choices, rally around Usi and consolidate, or frustrate him and degenerate into disarray
In this article, political analyst Wayisula Dulani, argues that as UTM goes to its first executive meeting this Friday since the passing of their founding leader Saulos Chilima, the leaders in the Central Executive Committee needs to accept that their fallen leader chose and entrusted the leadership in Michael Usi and after accepting that, they need redefine and perfect their position in Tonse Alliance as they prepare for 2025 elections.
UTM fallen leader Saulos Chilima never said a word about the position of his party in the Tonse Alliance. Because he never said a word if he was okay or not okay with being in Tonse Alliance, we can only speculate based on his actions and also actions of those who speak on his behalf.
His actions, I must underline, points to someone who was in a good working relationship with President Lazarus Chakwera. He was always where the President was and he accepted all the delegated assignments that the President gave him.
However, there were instances where Chilima, one would assume, perhaps spoke the mind of UTM, indirectly, through party zealots such as secretary general Patricia Kaliati. Kaliati, on record, was once at her usual verbal release and publicly declared that Chilima will lead Tonse Alliance in 2025.
One could only assume, of course, that could have been the reason President Chakwera also went public and declared that he will stand in 2025.
Well, its instances such as these, especially in situation where nobody knows what Chakwera and Chilima really agreed, that to a greater extent forces tongues to wag that, perhaps, UTM and MCP, the main Tonse Alliance partners, were heading for a fall out.
In fact, while leaving for South Korea, a journalist asked Chilima about the future of UTM’s position in Tonse Alliance in the wake of Chakwera’s pronouncement that he is standing in 2025. Chilima, in his response, was calm about it and said:
“The President was speaking to the MCP audience. Not to the Tonse Alliance audience. Time will come when Tonse Alliance will speak,” he said.
And that time will never come because he is dead and we will never hear from him again. But there is question, now: What is it that Chilima meant when he said Tonse Alliance will speak when time comes?
Let us face facts: despite all the sporadic and expected political and administrative differences that rocked Tonse Alliance while Chilima was alive, it is difficult to advance a potent argument that would convince a normal thinking Malawian that Chakwera and Chilima were in bad terms.
That is why, one would argue, Chakwera’s choice of veep was fundamentally premised on respecting Chilima through ensuring that the institutional set up he left, which is UTM, remains as he thought it would be. Because Chakwera had all the powers, well defined and defended by the Constitution, to appoint anyone else even outside UTM. In fact, if Chakwera had a salient bad blood with Chilima, he could have used Chilima’s death to completely annihilate UTM.
Because he didn’t do that, one can argue that Chakwera, in appointing Usi who by UTM Constitution is now the president, was just fundamentally ensuring that UTM still holds the vice presidency.
It is on this thought that UTM Central Executive Committee, as it meets this Friday, should, first of all, the UTM leadership will of Chilima, a will which Chakwera has only stamped an endorsement.
By choosing Usi as the second, that was Chilima’s will that, if anything happens something that even the UTM Constitution provides, the party will still be in the leadership hands of the person who has the best interest of its ideals and vision. In Usi’s appointment, there is that Chilima’s leadership will of UTM.
That is why in the painful process of UTM Central Executive Committee trying to move forward, the first reality to accept is that Usi is their leader by Chilima’s will, a will which Chakwera has just stamped. If Kaliati, Felix Njawala, or Khwesi Msusa, or even Penjani Fredokiss Kalua, were second to Chilima, either of them could have been, today, the vice president of Malawi. To mean, the first part of moving forward, as UTM, is to accept Chilima’s will and that will is Usi leading the party until convention.
That acceptance is critical not just in respecting Chilima’s will; but also in respecting the Constitution of UTM which is clear on leadership transitions in the party.
The tragedy with failing to agree on such a fundamental leadership principle is that cracks will develop in the executive and that will make it difficult for the party to move with a common cause, the cause that lives the vision and ideals of their Chilima.
Once they agree that on who leads the party, it will be easy for the party to concentrate on two critical issues awaiting resolve: One, deciding the future of UTM’s place in the alliance; and two, determining when to hold the convention so that leadership in the executive is legitimised.
But, as already argued, all these begins with one fact: Accept Chilima’s leadership will, as also enshrined in the Constitution, that Usi must lead all the processes.
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