LET’S TALK OF PEOPLE’S PARTICIPATION

Malawians want tripartite elections in 2014- Reports Nyasa Times. This begs the questions; which Malawians were consulted? On what basis were they selected? Who are they representing and are they representative enough?

These questions are not to belittle or demean the efforts taken by the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament to do some consultations on the issue of having tripartite elections as reported. But still the above questions are relevant to consider in the spirit of nation building, and in a considered view, must so be asked at a higher level.

To begin with, this is within the idea of public participation also referred to as people’s participation. This is one of the elements that makes up good governance and must be a practice in an open and democratic society. Specifically, it requires that people, or the public in other words, must be consulted by decision makers on issues of legislation and policy that impacts on their day to day life. The primary idea is not a smoke screen consultation, but that the public must have a meaningful role in the decision making process. This is important to make sure that the decisions made are in the interest of the public and addresses their needs.

There are many tools and mechanisms that may be employed to have a meaningful people’ participation in practice. It is on this background, and on the experience so far,  that it can be queried as to what mechanisms the Malawi nation has put in place to make sure that people are meaningfully consulted and participate in decision making. In many cases in our country, the decisions have been those of the executive branch of government with endorsement by members of parliament. In other cases, important policy decisions do not reach the parliamentary level. This is not to take away the fact that in some cases conferences, workshops and discussion forums have been organized. But the above raised questions still arise: What criteria are used to select the participants? What measures are put in place to make sure that the general public is made aware that a policy issue is in discussion, apart from inviting the designated participants? And how representative are these people, groups and organizations to all sections of the people of Malawi?

The concept of good governance dictates an open, transparent and accountable government. How open are these conferences, forums and gatherings if only a few people are informed and representative of many are not invited? Are the executives of the organizations, departments, distinguished members of the public, Civil Society representatives representing the people of Malawi?  Even at Parliament level, are the members of Parliament who are most of the times left with the power to decide representative of the views of Malawians in the communities? Can we say that the people of Malawi have a meaningful participation in decision making process through their members of parliament?

All in the mire, we need to strike a balance between representative governance and participatory governance. At the moment one cannot categorically say we are practicing either representative governance or participatory governance in the real sense of the words. For the sake of reference, the idea of amending the Constitution to have the President decide when local government elections are to be conducted, who was consulted? Whose views did it represent and who participated?  Were Malawians in favour of that decision? If Malawi is to make meaningful progress in governance serious steps and measures need to be taken to entrench and cultivate the practice of engaging people in decision making processes. This is without exclusion of the idea to insert some clauses in our Constitution and legislation obligating meaningful consultation and participation. Balancing the idea of representative and participatory governance is another are as a nation Malawi need to work on. Thumbs up the Legal Affairs Committee for doing the consultations.