…as Malawians say he has failed to handle the economy
…Malawi heading to Bagamoyo- Afrobarometer
Nearly nine out of every 10 Malawians (89%) say the country is heading “in the wrong direction,” a damning reflection of President Lazarus Chakwera’s leadership, the influential pollster Afrobarometer’s latest survey has revealed.
The report published this week, confirms The Investigator Magazine’s monthly polling, which has consistently shown the President losing next year’s elections based on his performance. Our last survey indicated Chakwera had slumped to 15% of the vote share, even below Vice President Saulos Chilima’s popularity.
Afrobarometer which has predicted correctly at least four elections in Malawi from 2009, says as many as 82% of Malawians now feel things are worse off than last year and 63% expect the situation to be “much worse” which is a political disaster for the President.
“Reflecting their dim views of the economy, Malawians overwhelmingly give their government poor marks on economic indicators. More than eight in 10 say the government has performed “fairly badly” or “very badly” on overall management of the economy (85%) as well as on keeping prices stable (95%),” reads part of the report.
Most Malawians, now short in cash income and poor, feel the gap between the rich and poor has widened, 86% feel nothing is being done, while 83% feel President Chakwera’s government has failed to create jobs or improve their living standards.
President Chakwera has only 17 months to convince the 90% of Malawians he can deliver after failing to do so in four years. He has remained mainly arrogant to factual data that shows his government and ministers are failing, preferring to listen to praise singers.
“When asked what they consider the most important problems that the government should address, Malawians most frequently cite management of the economy (mentioned by 56% of respondents as one of up to three priorities) (Figure 7). Economic issues such as food insecurity (36%), poverty (15%), and unemployment (15%) also rank high on citizens’ agenda for urgent government action,” adds the report.
Most Malawians reported that they were broke during the year and almost everyone had a day without cash in the year of survey. The government has launched cash transfer programmes, but less than 10 per cent of voters are not benefitting.
“For Malawians, the most frequent unmet need is a cash income: More than nine in 10 respondents (93%) say they went without an income at least once during the previous year, including 63% who say this happened “many times” or “always” Almost three-fourths (73%)2 experienced food shortages at least once, including 35% who frequently went without enough to eat. The same proportion often went without needed medical care (34%), while slightly fewer suffered frequent shortages of cooking fuel (29%) and clean water (24%),” the report says.
President Chakwera, who needs 50+1% to win the votes, will find that most rural and young voters do not trust him, and his party’s approach of turning young people into cheerleaders during rallies has no impact. His MCP youth directorate might want to rethink its strategy.
“Negative assessments of the country’s economic and personal living conditions are widespread across key demographic groups. Rural residents are more likely than urbanites to describe both as bad and poor respondents compared to their better-off counterparts. Younger citizens are less likely than their elders to see their living conditions as bad but are just as likely to describe the national economy in negative terms,” reads the report.
Chief Pollster for The Investigator Magazine said he was happy the magazine survey reports had been vindicated as “President Chakwera’s battalion” has always discounted factual evidence that he is failing to run the government.
