Go forth and multiply, we’ll foot the bill. That’s not scripture, folks, that’s the juiciest promise in the Malawi Congress Party (MCP)’s latest manifesto. President Lazarus Chakwera is back, and he’s doling out K500,000 for every bouncing baby born during his second coming, because nothing screams economic recovery like a national bedroom incentive.
According to Humphrey Mdyeseni, the MCP’s cash-splashing bishop of the National Economic Empowerment Fund (NEEF), the “Blessed Baby Bonus” will result in 600,000 little Lazaruses each year. That’s a tidy K300 billion annually. No problem, says Mdyeseni, who casually burnt K8.4 billion of your taxes on religious frauds, prophets and pulpit pimps. Apparently, that was just 5% of the budget. Maths, MCP-style.
Still no clarity if twins get K500,000 each or if it’s a Buy One Get One Free special. Triplets? A family tax haven.
And while 10,000 university students scrape for tuition like beggars at a five-star feast, the MCP’s grand plan is to make babies. Yes, in a country gasping for jobs and investment, we’re now monetising reproduction. Sex has become economic policy. At this rate, the Ministry of Gender might as well rename itself the Ministry of Multiplication.
It’s a hilarious sign of how MCP still thinks Malawians are daft enough to fall for sugar-coated manifestos stuffed with promises but empty on delivery. You’d think a party that spent decades in opposition would come back wiser lo, not hornier.
Let’s not forget, this is the same Chakwera who once thundered about reducing presidential powers. That pledge has quietly vanished. Now he’s too busy clutching power like a toddler to a feeding bottle. The manifesto brags about “good governance” as if corruption hasn’t set up permanent camp at Capital Hill. For five years, the president has treated looters like long-lost cousins, shielding them with gospel calm.
Remember the “1 million jobs in one year” promise? How did that go? Now he’s upped the ante to 2.3 million jobs in a broken economy where job ads read like eulogies.
But wait, the absurdity continues. Enter Toiletgate.
The president wants flush toilets for every school, yes, even those that aren’t technically schools but glorified termite mounds under trees. Imagine 50 pupils learning under a mango tree, dodging rain and snakes but hey, they’ll have a porcelain throne nearby, thanks to MCP’s plumbing obsession.
A third of Malawi’s kids don’t have proper classrooms, but we’re now prioritising toilet infrastructure. The logic? Unknown. But perhaps MCP bigwigs spend so much time eating public funds, the frequent toilet visits are rubbing off on policy.
As for the manifesto’s strategic blackout on the fertiliser subsidy, Mombera University, Nyika Road, and Chingale, it’s like the past five years never happened. Instead, they’ve thrown in shiny new distractions: Chikwawa–Euthini Road (67 km), Blantyre–Lilongwe–Mzuzu bypasses, and a host of other hallucinated highways.
This isn’t a manifesto. It’s a Tik Tok comment section with a budget.
Even the people bused in and paid K2,000 to cheer at the launch didn’t buy it. They left the stadium in droves before Chimwendo Banda could finish his empty poetry slam. The images of that half-empty stadium say what many Malawians feel: the music is off, the dance is tired, and the DJ’s playlist hasn’t changed since 2020.
If Chakwera needed a wake-up call, his manifesto launch was it. You can’t stage-manage popularity forever. Not when your big pitch is “babies and bathrooms.”
Malawians aren’t asking for miracles. We want clear plans, budget projections, and economic direction. Not reproductive incentives and plumbing priorities. Until then, MCP’s new five-year plan reads like a bad sitcom:
“Babies, Toilets & Broken Promises: Season 2.”
