Politics and peace

South Africans have started voting today, on this day South Africans outside the country are voting for their next president, it is believed that there are almost 100, 000 South African in the UK but so far only 7000 are expected to vote. Next week we will be having Zuma for president, yesterday he said he does not care about numbers all he wants is outright majority to make him implement ANC policies. We are just waiting to see what kind of president he is gonna be.

One thing, that we could have learnt from the South Africans is letting us vote from where ever we are am sure we could have joined others in Malawi to vote for Bingu at the embassy in Pretoria, it is believed that there are about 3000 000 malawians in Zim and a lot others here in South Africa, i have met wanthu wanandi wazukulu waMalawi kuno Ku Durban some of whom have never been to Malawi, am sure they could have increased the patronage in the voting process.

For now let us wait and see who is gonna get it, I see John Tembo as a big contender, it will need Bingu to do more than just talk about food and fertilizer. Who ever wins, as long as we are economically stable, as long as we do not see ma young democrats, as long as he does not use obscene language on national TV, as long as he allows us to mock him without arresting us because public figures ought to be open to criticism and scrutiny.

In South Africa however, the greatest challenge that the incoming president has is assuring the world that we can have a World Cup without major security risks. At the moment security is a major concern. I really feel sad when everytime i read a paper, almost two first pages would be covered with stories of shooting and death at the hands of bandits. Lately, policemen have equally been victims of these merciless killings, sometimes i really do not know how to distinguish between Iraq and this place. A week, ago one of my friends from Zambia experienced a horrible encounter with thieves. They had been following them with their car. They did not realize it. However when they packed outside his home, the bandits too parked just behind them, he called them foot soldiers, everyone of them had guns, they demanded for his wallet and cell phone. He said that he tried to do all he could to get some features of these guys for identification but when one noticed that he was scrutinising them, he was slapped heavily. The most sad thing on this day was that the girl who was driving the car was hit with the butt of a gun and she bled heavily, this was because she did not belieave it that her sisters car was gonna go just like that. It is crazy and horrible to see these events everytime. But this is a life that has been normalized in South Africa and when you say that there are places where these things happen only in movies, people think you are just saying fantasies.

That is one of the reason i am hoping that with Zuma at the helm, we might see some change, he is passionate about safe communities and he is an advocate of death penalty. These are things that as a Malawian, i look up to politicians and measure their capacity to safeguard our peace, i get proud to claim that i can answer my phone in town in Mzuzu and i remember one day walking all the way to town from MZUNI after watching Wambali perform, in our drunken state we sang all the way to Katoto filling station that is where we got a Taxi, In South Africa izi ni Nthano