Malawi: Teargas Cannot Build Democracy
Yesterday’s chaos at Kamuzu Mausoleum was more than just another political confrontation. It was a national embarrassment.
A day that should have united Malawians in remembrance of the country’s founding president instead exposed the deepening toxicity of our politics, the growing intolerance within State institutions and the dangerous collapse of national events into partisan warfare.
The image of police officers firing tear gas at supporters accompanying former president Lazarus Chakwera to a wreath-laying ceremony should disturb every citizen who still believes Malawi is a mature democracy.
Whether the Malawi Congress Party followed every procedure or not is no longer the central issue. The bigger question is this: why has Malawi become a country where political disagreements are increasingly handled through force, confrontation and public humiliation?
National commemorations are supposed to rise above party politics. Kamuzu Day is not a property of government. It is part of Malawi’s collective history. Yet what unfolded yesterday showed a nation so politically fractured that even memorial ceremonies are now treated like political battlefields.
More worrying was the triumphalist tone adopted by government spokesperson Shadric Namalomba in defending the police action.
“No legality means no sympathy,” he declared.
That statement may excite political loyalists, but it should alarm democrats.
Governments committed to democracy do not celebrate the use of force against opposition processions. Mature leadership de-escalates tensions. It does not weaponise legality to justify aggressive policing against political rivals.
What happened yesterday sends a dangerous signal: that State power is increasingly being used not merely to enforce order, but to politically dominate and intimidate.
And Malawi has travelled this road before.
Under previous administrations, the Malawi Police Service was repeatedly accused of serving ruling party interests instead of operating as a professional and independent institution. The tragedy is that every new government promises reform while in opposition, only to inherit and preserve the same machinery once in power.
That cycle is destroying public trust.
Police officers must never appear politically selective. Once citizens begin to believe law enforcement responds differently depending on party colours, the legitimacy of the institution starts collapsing. Democracy itself becomes fragile.
Yesterday’s events also exposed another painful truth: Malawi’s politics is becoming increasingly incapable of accommodating dissent peacefully. Opposition activity is viewed suspiciously. Rival political gatherings are treated like threats. Public institutions are dragged into partisan contests. The result is a nation trapped in permanent political hostility.
Even more tragic is that this happened on a day honouring Hastings Kamuzu Banda — a leader whose era was defined by political control, fear and suppression of opposition voices. Malawi embraced multiparty democracy precisely to move away from those tendencies.
Yet decades later, the shadows remain.
This country cannot continue normalising tear gas at memorial ceremonies, police confrontations at political gatherings and rival commemorations for national events. That is not democratic maturity. It is democratic decay.
Malawi desperately needs leaders capable of lowering political temperatures rather than inflaming them. It needs institutions that serve the Constitution rather than political interests. Above all, it needs to rediscover the difference between political competition and political hostility.
Because teargas may disperse crowds.
But it cannot build democracy.
By Nyasa Times.
