Afro barometer results to provide Tonse Alliance with direction

By Antony Isaiah Jr

The Tonse Alliance government said they are not faulting the results that were released by Afrobarometer survey as it will help them with direction on what Malawians are craving for.

According to the Afrobarometer survey results, the majority of the respondents said they would vote for the Democratic Progressive Party that was dethroned from the governance by the Tonse Alliance if elections were conducted in February this year.

The survey was conducted between 14 and 23 February 2022 and it found that there is eroded trust in the current government and about 80 per cent of Malawians think that the country is heading in the wrong direction.

The survey found that 41.2 per cent respondents preferred Democratic Progressive Party, Malawi Congress Party got 26.4 percent while UTM got 7.9 percent. People’s Party, and other Tonse Alliance members got 0.4 percent.

Minister of Information and digitalisation Gospel Kazako who is also the Government’s Spokesperson took advantage of the press briefing that he was holding together with the minister of Health in Lilongwe on Wednesday, Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda on Health to comment on the Afrobarometer report.

Kazako said the tonse alliance government is aware of the reasons of the outcomes of the Afrobarometer as it was conducted before the development projects that the government is rehabilitating in the country started swelling.

“We have read the report of the Afrobarometer survey and we are not against it. We believe that they talked to the Malawians and the Malawians responded by then because the survey was conducted in February, 2022.

“The Malawians are not foretelling what will happen in 2025, they are talking about that time, in February 2022.

“The report is showing us the performance of our government. The goodness is that report is talking about the past and it has no effect on the 2025 general elections.

“We are aware of the reasons behind the results in the report. We understand the plight of Malawians. Some of the things that have led to such results are the hiking of prices of commodities, intermittent blackouts and others.

“We take advantage of this report to take the good direction towards the needs of the Malawians. When people complain, it means they have hole that things will change of which will really happen in the country. And we are their hope and we don’t need to highlight things that went wrong during the last regime,” said Kazako.

Kazako added that the Tonse Government is doing everything to work on the crisis of the economy and a lot of things have a lot have improved in the country compared to how things were six months ago.

He said a lot of things have changed since the survey was conducted. Among other, Kazako said the government have managed to employ 2000 primary school and secondary school teachers.

“We are trying to restore our economy and ut should be attainable. We are rehabilitating roads which were not there February. If another survey comes today, the results will not be the same. We are trying to rehabilitate railways to facilitate business in the country.

“We are also building health posts and we also have other unfinished hospitals and we are committed to finish those projects.

“We have also added gear on efforts to curb corruption in Malawi, for example, ACB has special fund, and they are doing things independently. We know that corruption is the main reason for the results on the Afrobarometer survey. We know that Malawians need the solutions.

“Of course we have done a lot and some needs to be improved while some will demand time, for example we managed yo hike the Upkeep for university students from K200, 000 to K350,000 and we belive that the report will give us the ruler on what to do by 2025.

“We are also rehabilitating a 6-lane road and we know that by the time the survey was conducted, these things were not there,” said Kazako.

He added that a lot of development projects are being done and they are doing everything possible to change the economy of the country.

Kazako said the tonse alliance is not putting eyes on the 2025 general elections but the welfare of the Malawians.