Democracy failing Malawians, says Chibambo

Three decades after Malawi embraced multiparty democracy, former United Democratic Front (UDF) Cabinet minister Zililo Chibambo says the country has drifted far from the aspirations that inspired the fight for political change.

Speaking on Times Television on Saturday, Chibambo argued that the country’s democratic system has failed to deliver the meaningful transformation many Malawians expected, accusing today’s leaders of putting personal interests ahead of the people they were elected to serve.

He noted that the aim of attaining politics in a country is to see that the lives of people in the country improves and change for the better.

According to Chibambo, the change is seen to be something which has not been achieved since multiparty democracy came in.

“The lives of our people have completely gone down, we are even worse than we were in the time of change”, Chibambo said.

Chibambo also said that during the UDF regime, their biggest achievement was giving Malawians the freedom to speak out and question leadership.

“We gave that chance to the people of Malawi to be able to speak, criticise, question the leadership wherever the leadership is going wrong”, he said.

He further said Malawians are still struggling because most people who have joined politics are pursuing personal benefits instead of serving the country.

However, he made an appleal that more young men must get involved in the running of affairs of this country.