FOTSEKI!!! WHAT POLLS?
First it was the announcement that the long awaited Local Government Polls would finally be held on April 20th, 2011.

“This is what we have been waiting for, we applaud the president for this welcome development,” Aloysius Nthenda, Chairperson of the Malawi Electoral Support Network (MESN) told the local media.

MESN immediately embarked on a tour raising public awareness on the issue. Several trainings and public meetings were conducted in the South, Center and North (Regions). Journalists were not left out. They had their two-day training on Local Government Polls in Mulanje where I was privileged to be elected by fellow journalists into a five-member Media Task Force on Local Government Elections.

With just about three months to April 20, the closure of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) followed. Millions of kwachas had gone missing at the electoral body, so the world was told. The money went missing at the head office in Blantyre but every MEC office in Malawi was closed. A lot was said but it did not solve anything until, out of his own preference, the Ngwazi, Professor Bingu wa Mutharika ordered the reopening of the offices.

Operating under pressure, MEC announced it would be ready to hold the polls in September 2011. “And preparations have started to that effect so that come September 2011, the polls should take place,” MEC spokesperson Aubrey Sumbuleta told the nation.

In a-not-fully-contented attitude, MESN alongside other electoral stakeholders welcomed the development and cautioned government with both specified (legal) and unspecified action should the polls fail to take place.

BLANTYRE: Tuesday, May 24th. Breaking News: In consultations with the State president, MEC announces there will be no polls in 2011 but in 2014.

Our peaceful Malawi nation is used to such announcements. It has now become part of our daily meal. After all when did we hold last Local Government Elections? I now wonder when I hear the opposition and civil society crying over spoilt milk. Where were you all these years? You will keep weeping after all who told you failure to hold the polls is undemocratic? Fotseki, what polls? Osapanga kunyumba kwanu ngati mukufuna zisankho?

But me, I cry for my beloved mother Malawi. Where is my Malawi heading to? Is this what o’Banda and a Naphiri fought for 1992/3? People had just started calling me a teenager, quite young then coming from Dharap DEC, now Namiwawa, with my best friend Geoffrey Chaipa when we heard mu town mwavuta, anthu akulemera (ndi zinthu za mu PTC shops). We did not want to be left out, we run for it, though it was late by the time we reached at one of the PTC shops (Christwick- along Kamuzu Highway, now Masauko Chipembere).

It was the valor of one Chakufwa Thom Chihana that had stirred Blantyrians, Lilongweans and other Malawians to revolt and say “enough is enough”.

MULUNGU DALITSANI MALAWI!!!