Every election cycle in Malawi feels heavy with expectation. The posters go up, the rallies grow loud, and the promises multiply.
And yet, beneath the surface, something deeper stirsโa frustration that after sixty years of independence, we still produce like we are in 1880 but aspire to consume like we are in 2025.
The truth is not just about politicsโit is about systems. Our most pressing problem is not leadership alone, but production. A nation of over 20 million people is not a burden; it is potential. But potential means little if it is not meaningfully put to work.
We Desperately Need to Break Colonial Cycles
For too long, Malawi has fed into cycles that do not serve us. We continue to prioritize administrative roles over creators and builders. We celebrate the title of โpublic servantโ but fail to ask: What is being built? What is being produced?
We must confront the uncomfortable truth: the very structure of governance we inherited was never designed for Africa. It was built to extract, not to empower. Reform is not optional; it is survival.
Education as Production
Our education system is still teaching young people to wait for jobs that do not exist. We do not need more clerks, we need creators. We do not need more dependency, we need design. Business thinking must be made mandatoryโnot as a slogan, but as a framework for survival.
Entrepreneurship should not be a side hustle, it should be the main curriculum. We must train, fund, and trust our young people. Give them the tools to produce, to solve, and to compete. This is how we break the reading curse, the waiting curse, the begging curse.
Fixing the Supply Chain
Even the most brilliant ideas collapse without systems that sustain them. If we are to harness the potential of 20 million people, our supply chains must function. Agriculture cannot feed us if markets are broken. Factories cannot thrive if energy is unreliable. Talent cannot stay if opportunity is absent.
This is not about aid. It is about agency. It is about fixing what is broken so Malawians can finally thrive on their own terms.
As Malawi takes to the polls, we must ask ourselves the hard questions:
- What works?
- In what context?
- Under what circumstances?
- And why?
The answers will not come from manifestos alone. They will come from bold reforms, from honest reckoning, from courage to do what has never been done before.
We are not just voting for leaders. We are voting for a future.
We are comingโฆ
Ntha
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