All's Quiet on the southern front

The results are in and Dr. Bingu Wa Mutharika, leader of the DPP, Democratic Progressive party) is now doing his second term as Malawi's president. He was inaugurated today in Blantyre. I live in Lilongwe so I didn't get to go and see the ceremony. Nor do I have any pictures, yet. But I am trying to get some. It was great to see so many Malawians out voting and then it was even greater to see that Malawians were so peaceful the next day. I mean I was telling someone and laughing about it when we were driving around on the streets the next day that it didn't even seem like there was an election. People were so chill. But Malawians are relatively chill anyway. I mean u had the occasional honking of the horn and wagging of the index finger (a symbol of the DPP party), but that was it. In the west, what we think about when we hear about politics in Africa is corruption, chaos and genocide. I mean we know about places like the Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, DRC, Zim, etc...where you hear about detaining of opposition leaders, killings of political supporters, fighting by rebel leaders or whatever. But while it has happened in many African countries it doesn't happen in all. That's not to say that I necessarily believe Malawi's election weren't without problems. I mean the elections were free, but were they fair? It depends what your definition of fair is. One of the biggest problems is that where political parties get their money from for their campaigns is not questioned. There are no checks and balances. And secondly, the DPP had an incredible media power providing them with only positive coverage. TVM, Malawi's only tv station, and also MBC the radio broadcaster who has incredibly strong signals across the country gave the DPP a huge platform to convince the public why they should be in power. The media is a powerful tool that can always be used to sway people's decisions. Yes, there are private radio stations who provided fair coverage but their signals are not as strong as MBC's so unfortunately those who heard the bias coverage of TVM and MBC didn't have the other radio stations to balance out the messages. Some would consider the use of state media by the DPP is a form of rigging but that's not for me to decide, it's for Malawians to decide. Despite this, what we need to remember is that Malawi became a democracy in 1994. Western democracy is much older than Malawi's. They are still fresh. And I think that as time goes on, Malawians will start to demand more and more from their politicians and their media. Clearly, this election is showing that Malawi's politics is evolving. In this election, people voted based on the issues and ignored regional or tribal divisions as previously was the case. People made decisions based on not which leader came from their area but what each leader could do for them. DPP has done a great job on the economy, the Kwacha is strong, food security has improved, development is occurring and so many other things are happening under the DPP government. Yes, the government has it's problems but what government doesn't. In Canada, we still have not settled the issue with aboriginal people. We have first nations people who are suffering on reserves because of poor health care, lack of employment opportunities, clean water and social support for the family structure. In the United States, issues of racial inequality and systemic racism still persist. There are complaints of media bias in Canada and in the United States. Lack of coverage for Palestinian issues and pro-Israel coverage. So I mean no society is perfect. Without passing judgment on one society or saying how much better our democracy is then theirs lets remember that ours has a few stains as well. I commend Malawi for setting a great example to the rest of Africa. Congratulations to all Malawians for carrying out a peaceful elections!