Opinion

When Malawi's Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Dr. Ben Malunga Phiri, stood before an audience at Peking University to reflect on the Communist Party of China's governance experience, he was doing more than delivering a courtesy speech during a ministerial study tour. He was articulating a sentiment increasingly common among policymakers across the [...]

On 16 September 2025, Malawians went to the polls to elect a President, Members of Parliament and Councillors. The incumbent, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika, standing on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ticket, polled 3,035,249 votes (56.76%), defeating his rival, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) leader Lazarus Chakwera, who garnered 1,765,170 votes (33.01%). The election has been [...]

There are critical moments in the life of a constitutional democracy when we must step back and confront a fundamental question: what does the supreme law of our land, the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi, demand? Since our hard-fought-for democracy, the recurring debates over the status, authority, and security of tenure of Malawi’s First [...]

The United Kingdom is changing the way it approaches development. Its new development policy speaks explicitly about moving from "donor to investor" — placing greater emphasis on investment, trade, expertise and locally led development. As someone who has long advocated trade and investment as engines of economic development, I welcome this direction. But for Malawi, [...]

Vice-President Jane Ansah has finally broken her silence on what appears to be a serious breakdown in the relationship between the country's second-highest office and the administration she serves, revealing that she was excluded from two Cabinet meetings and stripped of her disaster-management responsibilities. But the most curious part of her explanation is that, while [...]

Malawi's Parliament has been forced to pause its planned investigations into several public institutions and sectors, after the High Court issued an interim order stopping the Speaker and Parliament from establishing or operationalising joint ad hoc committees for the probes. The order, issued by High Court judge Allan Muhone on September 4, 2026, followed a [...]

Some of your highest performers may also be your biggest leadership risk. Edgar Chibaka explores why CEOs must stop rewarding toxic high performers, measure trust alongside results, and build cultures where performance strengthens people rather than destroys them.

The human cost of conflict is immense. Global headlines document the devastating consequences in the Middle East and territories, Sudan, the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Sahel, and beyond. It is a significant cost in terms of both lives lost and harmed, particularly for children, and communities fragmented. In 2025 alone, at least [...]

Portraying Minister Alfred Gangata’s K40 million church donation as disrespect towards President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika is unfair and politically misguided. The fact that Gangata gave more than the President does not, by itself, suggest rivalry or disloyalty. The controversy followed Gangata’s contribution to a CCAP Livingstonia Synod project, while President Mutharika donated K5 million [...]

He was late Saulos Chilima’s political deputy, confidant, government bridge and successor. So why is his voice missing from the inquiry? There is a curious omission at the heart of Parliament’s renewed inquiry into the plane crash that killed former Vice-President Saulos Chilima: Michael Usi. The question is not whether Usi is implicated in the [...]

From Sulaimana to Chilumpha and Mutharika, treason has repeatedly shadowed political battles Sylvester Namiwa is now facing one of the most serious criminal charges in Malawi, putting his case in the High Court and reviving uncomfortable questions about the country's long and politically charged history with treason. The Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives [...]

When Morocco named a major highway linking Tiznit to Dakhla after United States President Donald Trump, many observers dismissed it as little more than a symbolic diplomatic gesture. But the decision reflects a much deeper strategy. Morocco was not simply honouring an American president; it was using symbolism to project a national vision. The road [...]

Inclusive, strategic and policy-driven, the opposition's new front bench signals a shift from politics of protest to politics of oversight. Not Just Appointments—A Declaration of Intent The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) has done more than announce a Shadow Cabinet—it has unveiled a strategy for governance from the opposition benches. Far from being a routine list [...]

There is a particular kind of legal case that outlives the institution at its centre, and Malawi's long-running dispute over Finance Bank is one of them. The bank itself has not existed in any meaningful sense since January 2006. Yet twenty years on, the machinery of the state and the ghost of a defunct lender [...]

After reading and comparing both the old and the new CDF Guidelines, writer EPHRAIM NYONDO argues that the 2026 framework marks a decisive shift from automatic funding to a project-first model—placing planning, procurement and accountability ahead of spending to deliver better, more transparent and more sustainable development for Malawi. When people hear that Constituency Development [...]

President Arthur Peter Mutharika's denunciation of mineral smugglers as "traitors" is, by the standards of Malawian political rhetoric, unusually pointed. It came at the swearing-in of Thoko Tembo as the country's first dedicated minister of mining, a role carved out of what was previously a combined energy-and-mining portfolio. The severity of the language is worth [...]

Here's a question worth asking about Malawian politics right now: when did you last see President Arthur Peter Mutharika? Not hear about him. See him. Addressing the nation, holding an audience, out and about. If you're struggling to remember, you're not alone. The last notable sighting was his return from a private visit to South [...]

Introduction: The Changing Nature of Malawi's Politics The era in which a single political party could comfortably dominate the political landscape is gradually coming to an end. Today's electorate is increasingly fragmented along lines of geography, demographics, economic interest, political priority, and ethnic or regional identity. Political competition has therefore become more complex, requiring broader [...]

The Malawi Law Society's decision to publicly challenge Director of Public Prosecutions Fostino Maele over the discontinuation of a string of high-profile criminal cases deserves the full attention of every Malawian who still believes in the rule of law. To be clear, the Society is right to acknowledge upfront that the Constitution grants the DPP [...]

Malawi risks locking a generation of talented students out of higher education unless government urgently overhauls its student loan and bursary system, a security and governance analyst has warned, as recent tuition fee increases at the country's universities spark growing public anger. In a widely shared commentary, Sydney Mpotalinga, a law and social work graduate, [...]

There is something almost admirable about the confidence with which Malawi's government has just spent the better part of a fortnight training a new diplomatic corps in everything except the one thing it claims to want from them. On 1 July, Foreign Affairs Minister George Chaponda stood in Lilongwe and handed certificates to the country's [...]