By Durell Namasani
In a sharp rebuke that has quickly gone viral, political commentator and former legal advisor to the late President Bingu Mutharika, Allan Z. Ntata, has accused Malawi’s Speaker of Parliament Sammer Suleman of abandoning his constitutional role in favor of acting as a government spokesperson.
In a blistering Facebook post titled “Ntata Stinger | The Speaker is Not a Cheerleader,” Ntata directed his criticism at Speaker Suleman, arguing that the nation’s legislative leader has crossed a critical line.
“When the Speaker of Parliament starts sounding like a campaign spokesperson, something has already gone wrong,” Ntata wrote. “The Speaker is not there to defend the President. He is there to defend the institution that must hold the President to account.”
Ntata warned that once that distinction is blurred, Parliament ceases to be a check on power and “becomes a microphone for it.” The consequence, he argued, is that the public is no longer governed, but merely “managed.”
Anticipating potential defenses based on party affiliation—given that both President Lazarus Chakwera’s administration and Speaker Suleman have ties to the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), while Ntata comes from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) camp—the commentator dismissed such logic as dangerously flawed.
“Some will see nothing wrong with this. They will say: the President came from DPP, the Speaker is DPP, so of course he must align and cheer. But that is precisely the misunderstanding that weakens nations,” Ntata stated. “Once elected, a President becomes a national figure, not a party champion; and once elected, a Speaker must leave party cheerleading to party operatives.”
The former legal advisor took a particular issue with the rhetoric of “trust the process,” calling it an empty placeholder for failed accountability.
“‘Trust the process’ is not a governance strategy,” he wrote. “It is what leaders say when institutions are no longer doing the work that earns trust.”
Ntata insisted that Malawians are not looking for political reassurance but for tangible results, using the ongoing fuel shortages as a pointed example. “Fuel does not arrive because we believe hard enough. It arrives when decisions are made properly, systems are managed competently, and accountability is enforced without fear or favour.”
His core warning was systemic: When the Speaker begins to campaign for the Executive, the message to the civil service and the political class is that “loyalty matters more than function.”
“And once a system begins to reward loyalty over function, it does not matter who is in power,” Ntata concluded. “Nothing changes.”
He called on Malawians to insist on a simple, non-negotiable principle: “Let the Executive govern. Let Parliament scrutinise. Let the Speaker preside; not praise.”
As of press time, Speaker Suleman had not issued a formal response to Ntata’s remarks. The post has since generated hundreds of shares and comments, with many Malawians echoing the call for parliamentary independence.
