Dear President Mutharika,
Happy 85th birthday.
Turning 85 is no small feat — in fact, it’s miraculous in a country where, in 1940, life expectancy barely scratched 35. Statistically speaking, you’ve outlived almost your entire birth cohort.
Only about 6,000 of the 21 million Malawians today were even alive when you were born. That’s not just longevity — that’s legendary status. You are a walking archive, a living library of the Malawian story who was actually 24 years when the country attained Independence on that cold 6th July morning in 1964. It seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it, Sir?
Your intellectual credentials remain unmatched: Yale, London, Dar es Salaam, Washington University, ABA, the UN. You’ve built a life that most Malawians can only read about — because they weren’t yet born when you were shaping it. And that’s what makes your current political ambition so baffling.
Why would an 85-year-old man want to govern a nation whose future he is, by every honest measure, no longer a part of?
This is not ageism. It’s realism. Age is not just a number — it is biology, cognition, stamina, context. Leadership is not academic. It’s not theoretical. It’s 18-hour days, travel, crisis management, decisions made on the fly, coordination across ministries and regions, and the ability to stay alert through it all. It’s not a lecture hall. It’s a battlefield. And forgive the bluntness, Sir, but no one brings an 85-year-old general to the frontlines of a war for national transformation.
This country is at war with poverty. With debt. With youth unemployment. With climate shocks. With the death of hope. And over 60% of our population is under the age of 25. The median age is 17. How does someone born before the invention of colour television plan to lead a generation raised on TikTok, AI, and global climate anxiety?
Their lives are moving at the speed of 5G — and they need a leader who doesn’t need help opening PDFs or understanding memes. They need someone who speaks the language of their future, not someone whose references were last relevant when Malawi had one national radio station.
You’ve served before. From 2014 to 2020, you sat at the top. And while there were moments of stability, there was also economic stagnation, persistent nepotism, and enough scandals to suggest that power was being exercised by those in your name — but not under your watch. The cement import saga, for instance, involved your very own personal bodyguard. Thousands of tonnes brought in under your presidential tax privileges, sold for profit. And when you were confronted by the ACB, you feigned ignorance. That’s not governance. That’s abdication by other means.
But the most tragic part? This doesn’t even feel like your own idea. It feels like you are being wheeled back into the ring by a coterie of political gamblers, too afraid to face the public themselves. They need your name, your immunity, your signature — not your ideas. You are not their champion, Mr. President. You are their shield. And they’re hiding behind you while Malawi burns.
Let’s stop this tragic play before it becomes a national farce.
It is time for you to become what Africa needs more of — elder statesmen. Not bitter, power-clutching old men, but wise, gracious mentors who step aside and lift up the next generation. Write your memoirs. Give lectures. Start a Presidential Leadership Fellowship. Mentor a hundred young Malawians who could one day lead this country better than all of us ever have. But do not insult your legacy by entering this race like a man who doesn’t know when the music has stopped.
You deserve peace, Sir. Not campaign fatigue. You deserve to be honoured, not heckled. To be respected, not resisted. And this country deserves more than recycled ambition disguised as experience.
So, Mr. President — with deep respect and admiration:
Do not run. Walk away like a man who knows the difference between power and legacy.
Be remembered not as the last of the old, But as the first elder who made way for the new.
Sincerely.
