By THE SATIRIST | ARCHIVIST OF POLITICAL REALITY AND KEEPER OF THE VOTE
UTM has promised to do in five days what seasoned political parties take months to orchestrate: hold nationwide primaries. It’s a bold claim, one that could impress if only there were a national presence to justify it.
But herein lies the farce: you don’t need weeks when you only have candidates in pockets. One doesn’t host a national tournament with four teams and call it the World Cup.
Let’s state this plainly: UTM’s ability to squeeze primaries into a working week is not efficiency. It’s an indictment of their lack of national infrastructure. Beyond social media applause and Instagram reels, UTM lacks the most fundamental feature of any serious political force grassroots structure.
Political analysts have also weighed in, describing the five-day timeline as ambitious at best and theatrical at worst. One analyst quipped, “It’s easy to cover the country in five days when you barely exist in half of it.”
UTM’s electoral footprint, as seen in the 2019 tripartite elections, exposes this fragility. Saulos Chilima’s presidential bid garnered a respectable 20.24% of the national vote an indication of his personal appeal, not the party’s. When the parliamentary ballots were counted, however, UTM won just 4 seats out of 193, barely 2% representation. In short, the Chilima wave didn’t translate to a legislative tide. This stark disparity highlights a party driven by personality rather than political infrastructure, and by optics rather than operatives. It was charisma over caucus, performance over presence. A moment, not a movement.
And now? The drum major is gone.
In his place stands Dalitso Kabambe, a man whose résumé reads like a World Bank brochure but whose political appeal has yet to graduate beyond boardroom corridors. Even the late Muluzi, no stranger to selling tough political products, once described Bingu as “malonda ovuta kugulitsa”. Kabambe might very well be Bingu without the bassline.
Perhaps, just perhaps, a few free concerts from the party’s Rap Messiah will draw a crowd. But unless microphones now double as ballot boxes, the math isn’t in their favour.
Political parties, historically and globally, are built on the backs of regions that believe in them. The MCP, love them or loathe them, are not merely a party they’re a belief system. A cultural institution. Etched in the very granite of this nation’s formation. From Mponela to Mbayani, MCP is not explained it’s inherited.
And the DPP? While it may be a club of inflated egos, misplaced entitlement, and men who confuse arrogance for gravitas, let’s not pretend they don’t command numbers. The Lhomwe Belt remains fiercely loyal. It votes blue even when the ship is half-sinking. That is what real structure looks like an army with a direction (albeit sometimes backwards).
UTM, on the other hand, was built around a single man. A movement forged in the force of Chilima’s charisma, not in the discipline of party-building. And now that the drum major has fallen silent, the parade has no rhythm.
What remains is a shell. A party relying on RapMen and social media metrics, hoping that likes and retweets will somehow translate into ballots. They won’t. Politics isn’t a popularity contest it’s a boots on the ground campaign of repetition, mobilisation, and belief.
You don’t win constituencies by trending on TikTok.
This five-day primary theatre isn’t bold. It’s desperate. It’s a soft admission that the cupboards are bare and the room echoes when you call for contenders. The electorate deserves more than speed. It deserves substance.
And to be quite honest, if your grand electoral strategy relies on internet clout and a few leftover selfies from 2019, then you’re not running for office you’re running from irrelevance.
Conclusion: The Real Marathon is in the Mud
Politics in Malawi is not for the sleek, the hip, or the algorithmically adored. It is for those who know their ward chairmen by name, who understand the pulse of Makanjira and the silence of Chitipa.
Five days of primaries might look efficient on paper, but in the grand scheme of electoral battle, it is merely a footnote a punchline in the comedy of underprepared contenders.
The show may be brief. But the joke? Enduring.
And for UTM, the punchline is this: you can’t fast-track what you never bothered to build.
