By Durell Namasani
There comes a time when silence becomes complicity, and for the sake of basic decency in Malawi’s body politic, that time has arrived. The systematic humiliation of Vice President Justice Dr. Jane Ansah SC RTD by the very government she serves must cease.
Let us remember the facts. Dr. Ansah was not a career politician. She did not scheme, bargain, or backstab her way onto the ticket. She was plucked from the judiciary – from a life of quiet jurisprudence – because President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika saw fit to pick her as his running mate in the last elections. She accepted the call as a national duty, leaving behind the dignity of the bench for the rough-and-tumble of politics. For that sacrifice, what has she received in return?
Disrespect. Innuendo. And a cold shoulder from the very party that drafted her into its ranks.
If Dr. Ansah had committed any political sin – incompetence, disloyalty, corruption – then her marginalisation might be understandable. But no such accusation has been levelled. Her only apparent offence is being a Vice President that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government seems embarrassed to acknowledge. She was supposed to be one of them. Instead, she has been treated as an outsider in her own administration.
Consider the indignities, now too numerous to ignore.
When the President left the country, the nation expected the Vice President to naturally assume her constitutional role: leading cabinet in his absence. That basic courtesy was denied. Instead, a mere minister was picked to preside over the cabinet meeting, while Dr. Ansah was present – reduced to a spectator in her own government. Not once, but repeatedly. What message does that send? That a Vice President is less worthy than a presidential appointee?
Then there is the question of her office. What meaningful duties has she been delegated? None. Her schedule, by all accounts, has been stripped of policy substance. She has been reduced to cutting ribbons, attending funerals, and visiting churches on Sundays – important pastoral work, yes, but not what the Constitution envisions for the second-highest office in the land. She has been systematically sidelined, made invisible, rendered irrelevant.
And the latest humiliation, played out before the nation at the Chilima memorial in Nsipe, Ntcheu. Here was a ceremony honouring the memory of a late Vice President – a man who knew the weight of that office. One would expect the sitting Vice President, Dr. Jane Ansah, to be the natural guest of honour, or at least a central figure. Instead, President Mutharika chose to delegate the role of his representative to Minister Bright Msaka SC – a senior lawyer, yes, but a minister junior to both Vice Presidents. Dr. Ansah was present, yet again sidelined, while a subordinate stood in the place of honour.
The cruel irony is not lost. Dr. Saulosi Chilima, in his time, also suffered under this same culture of neglect. History is repeating itself, and the Maseko Ngoni – Dr. Ansah’s own people – are watching their Impi being treated as a figure of ridicule.
The saddest reality is that President Mutharika is playing a blinder. He acts as if he does not see. He offers no explanation. He makes no apology. He simply ignores, and the machine of disrespect rolls on. Perhaps he calculates that Dr. Ansah, a woman of the bench, will not cry out. Perhaps he believes she will simply endure.
But endurance has its limits. And the nation is watching.
Treat Vice President Jane Ansah with respect. Not because she demands it, but because the office she holds demands it. Because the Constitution demands it. Because the women of Malawi who see their own struggle for recognition reflected in her silent suffering demand it.
If President Mutharika truly believes she was fit to be his running mate, then let him treat her as one. If he does not, then honesty demands he admit his error. But this half-measure – this cruel, daily humiliation of a distinguished daughter of Malawi – must stop.
It is not politics. It is sheer indecency.
And decency, unlike power, should never be provisional
