Opposition politics is not lecturers protest at Chancellor College. It is not a megaphone moment. It is not theatre for applause. It is strategy, discipline, timing, and message control.
And right now, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) is learning the hard way that the tactics of yesterday’s academic freedom battles from their current spokesperson cannot run today’s opposition bench.
Jessie Kabwila — once a fierce and fearless fighter during the academic freedom saga — now finds herself at the centre of a storm that MCP simply cannot afford. Her recent admission that some senior party figures stole billions of kwacha while in government was not made under pressure from investigators. It was not extracted by hostile journalists. It came from her own mouth, at her own party headquarters.
And then came the political twist.
Having acknowledged that public resources meant for poor Malawians were looted, she reportedly urged supporters not to expose those involved and instead defend them — all in the name of party unity.
Let us pause.
You cannot confess to corruption and then campaign for silence in the same breath. That is not unity. That is contradiction. And in opposition, contradictions are fatal.
MCP is no longer in government. It is rebuilding. It is repositioning. It is preparing for the next electoral battle. In such a season, every word matters. Every sentence is ammunition — either for you or for your rivals.
Right now, the party is scoring own goals.
A spokesperson is not a street activist. A spokesperson is the party’s thermostat — controlling temperature, calming storms, framing narratives. You need composure. You need precision. You need someone who knows what to say — and more importantly, what not to say.
Sobriety. Intelligence. Wisdom.
Not verbal grenades.
There is a reason Moses Kumkuyu once served as government spokesperson during the Chakwera administration. He brought calm after turbulence. He projected control when communication was drifting. The cap of party spokesperson requires steadiness, not fireworks. At this critical hour, that cap appears to fit Kumkuyu far better.
This is not about humiliation. It is about alignment.
In football, when a striker keeps missing open goals, a coach does not end the player’s career. He substitutes. He reshuffles. He repositions. The objective is victory, not ego management.
MCP’s president has every right to reshuffle the NEC — not to purge, not to punish — but to ensure the right people occupy the right spaces. Kabwila could serve effectively in research, policy articulation, or ideological training. Those are valuable roles. But the front-facing microphone of a party in opposition demands restraint and message discipline.
The academic freedom battlefield rewarded confrontation. National opposition politics punishes recklessness.
Malawians are watching. They want accountability. They want clarity. They want consistency. When a party admits looting yet discourages exposure, it sends a dangerous signal: that power may change hands, but habits remain intact.
If MCP is serious about bouncing back in the next election, it must show that it has learned, reflected, and recalibrated. Communication is not a side issue. It is the engine of political recovery.
At the moment, that engine is misfiring.
Strategy demands courage. And sometimes courage means making uncomfortable internal decisions.
Reassign. Reset. Recalibrate.
No two ways about it.
