Inspired by Kenya, Malawi Religious Leaders Propose “Handshake” to Key Political Rivals

“We are trying to have dialogue with the government and other political party leaders but it is very slow,” Archbishop Msusa said.

“I know it takes time, but we are hopeful that through this dialogue the country will experience peace once again,” the prelate said expressing the need of encouraging the seeking of common grounds between the different party leaders, guided by what unites more than what divides.

The mediation team spearheading the dialogue process comprises three representatives of the Islamic faith, three representatives of the Malawi Council of Churches and the Catholic Church represented by Archbishop Msusa.

The Public Affairs Committee (PAC), which is the mother body of all religions in Malawi appointed the various religious representatives. The Executive Director of PAC is part of the mediation team.

“We have finished the first round of dialogue, we met with the human rights commission, the leaders of the three prominent parties each on its own and then we met the president,” Archbishop Msusa told ACI Africa in reference to the stakeholders in the peace mediation efforts in Malawi and added, “each group explained why they are demonstrating and why they are not happy.”

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A common concern being the election process as overseen by the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), the Malawian Prelate confirmed, “All the parties raised their concerns and what came out is that, some people feel that elections were not managed very well, that there was too much rigging and the Electoral Commission did not follow other laws that were supposed to be applied.”

“Other political parties do not recognize him (President Mutharika) as the president of the country but the president of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP),” Archbishop Msusa said.

Reporting about the results of the previous meetings, he said, “We have compiled the feedback we received in the first round of dialogue from all the parties, the human rights and the president. We have given each party even the president the compiled copy to go through.”

“In the second round we are going to invite two leaders from each party who are going to meet and iron out the issues to be discussed or not to be discussed from what we (mediation team) have compiled,” Archbishop Msusa disclosed and added, “after that we will then find a neutral place for the president of the country and the presidents of other parties to come and face each other.”

“Apart from meeting the president and other political leaders, the mediation team has also met with Electoral Commission who were managing the elections,” he clarified.

This is the first time that Malawi is experiencing post-elections violence, the Archbishop confirmed saying, “We took for granted that Malawi is the warm heart of Africa … it is a wake-up call that we should not take for granted especially now that 60% of the population are young people who do not have jobs and want to participate in these public wars it is really a wake-up call in Malawi.” 

The judgement on the disputed elections results, which is still in court, is expected to be delivered in December.