Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika is back in town. Yes, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) swept Malawi’s 2025 general election on September 16 with a commanding 56.8% of the presidential vote, trouncing incumbent Lazarus Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP) which limped in at a measly 33%.

APM, now at a very “experienced” age of 85, was sworn in last Saturday at Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre, amid cheers that echoed across Blantyre like a mafioso family reunion.

With him? Almost all the minions who last time around turned State House into what felt like … a den of gamblers, thieves and harlots. They’re also back in town. Let’s see, we’ve got the ever-loyal Norman Chisale, the former presidential bodyguard and chief gatekeeper to APM, who is now an MP. We have Ben Phiri, the MP whose pre-parliamentary escapades included enough scandals to stock a tabloid’s wet dream. There is George Chaponda, the shadowy health minister whose corruption whispers have lingered longer than a bad hangover. Joseph Mwanamveka too is back in town, as is Alfred Ruwan Gangata – who was arrested last January on forgery charges, for falsifying tax records.

All well and good, right? A triumphant return, confetti in the air, and perhaps a few victory laps around Ndata farm.

But this time around, there is truly no honeymoon. Olo ndi nthawi yokhala pansi ndi kumwako thobwa lomwe palibe. The new President of Malawi has his work cut out. The economy is in free-fall, battered by market forces Chakwera’s administration failed to control. We had a cyclone that turned farmlands into mud pools, there’s been a drought that’s destroyed crops for hundreds of thousands of Malawians. And the country is railing from a Forex crisis that’s spawned a lucrative black market economy. Inflation, that much hated bastard, peaked at 33.9% last year before grudgingly dipping to around 27% like a severe wench who is grumpy that one of her most valuable girls has suddenly developed pimples.

Poverty clings to over 70% of the population. And don’t get me started on the prices of goods and commodities, because there too fertilizer is unaffordable and tomatoes now cost nearly as much as meat. Even the essentials like fuel has skyrocketed since Chakwera’s first days in office – turning every petrol station into a massive sweat-soaked and smelly car park of resigned motorists.

So, to fix all that, and maybe even grow the economy will be one heck of a feat. It will require more than just APM’s jokes, and more than the constant highlighting of Chakwera’s flaws – of which we all agree there were many. Saying “We inherited an economy that was broken..…” in speeches wont cut it this time around. That is to say APM must deliver, and must deliver quickly, for Malawians to truly embrace the current incarnation of DPP.

But it will be hard. Think of it this way, it’s like expecting a cobbled-together, leaky wooden canoe to win a boat race across a rapids-choked river infested with crocodiles. It’s tafu. You’ll need oars, muscly rowers, maybe a bush canoe engineer or two. You’ll probably also need a priest, and a navigator who knows the terrain ahead.

Optimism alone won’t be enough.

Having said all that, this DPP government is different for two distinct reasons, and here please pay atention. The first is that it has Vice President Jane Ansah in it, who, other than the tippex-tainted mishaps of the 2019 elections, is a very remarkable woman indeed; a trailblazing lawyer with three law degrees, including a PhD in international human rights law from the University of Nottingham, where she honed her chops amid the misty spires of British academia. She has also served as a Supreme Court Judge, before serving as Attorney General of Malawi from 2006 to 2011, after which she was appointed to the Malawi Electoral Commission as Chairperson. Ansah has championed women’s rights through tireless advocacy, and during her time in Nottingham, besides having exposure to progressive ideas, she immersed herself in grassroots initiatives tied to local churches, fostering programs for immigrant integration, youth empowerment, community upliftment and legal aid clinics that bridged cultural divides. So, even while in England, she was building bridges, and helping hundreds of people.

I know all this because I was living in Nottingham between 2002 and 2005. And Nottingham has been my ‘second home’ for over 20 years. I’ve seen the work she’s done with my own eyes.

And at 70, as only the second female VP in Malawi’s history, she’s probably the most steady hand in a deck full of …. wild cards? I’m not saying there aren’t others within DPP who are level headed, of course there are.

What I’m saying, fellow Malawians, is that other than APM, and the likes of Joseph Mwanamveka, there is at least one other senior person in this government who we can be rest-assured, knows what they’re doing. Or knows what they’re supposed to be doing.

The second reason why this DPP government is different is that some of the troublemakers of yesteryear – the Norman Chisales and the Ben Phiris – are now MPs. Their electoral victories is probably a testament to voter forgiveness and short memory spans. Or it’s the visible triumph of I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine shenanigans. Even our very own mwana wa adzadzi, Jomo Osman, is now a councillor and deputy mayor of Blantyre; lording over potholes and business inspections with the gravitas of a man who’s seen it all.

You’d hope that those official positions will somehow tame the more rabid impulses of their characters. Because if you ask me, some of them are a tiny little bit feral and need taming.

Of course, in the case of Ben Phiri, he managed to get into parliament last time around. So he at least has had some time to practice the craft of statesmanship. But not before accumulating a couple of controversies to his name. So, while the known rascals like the Norman Chisales, the Collins Magalasis and the Jomo Osmans will hopefully have mellowed with age, it’s the new unknowns, or the not-so-well-known DPP zealots who we should be worried about. Anyamata amene boma samaliziwa bwino bwino nthawi yoyamba yomwe Peter anali President. They were the young guns who, in 2014 were cadets that were too junior in rank; merely fingerlings darting in the shadows. They were not sufficiently close to the reins of power, nor possessing any iota of authority, for the country to be concerned about them. But now some of them are, having taken the positions previously occupied by the old guard – who have moved up a few notches, as if this were promotions in a mafioso enterprise.

And so, our collective problem as Malawians right now in terms of preventing the kind of scandals that hounded Chakwera and Co, is that those “promotions” require careful management. Because, looking at everything we know about figures who previously occupied positions of influence at State House and the Office of the President and Cabinet, more often than not, some of them go crazy, when they’re holding those positions.

Forget Zangazanga Chikhosi, look at the excesses of Prince Kapondamgaga, for example. Before Chakwera came to power, nobody had ever heard of the guy. Nobody knew him. He wasn’t even a footnote in Malawi’s political discourse; just another elder at Malawi Assemblies of God. The guy also had no direct political or public service experience. But under Chakwera, he rocketed, almost overnight, to the president’s inner politburo. Rubbing shoulders with the likes of Eisenhower Mkaka and other top MCP figures. And as State House Chief of Staff, he was one of the doorways to Chakwera.

But then, shortly after we heard how he tumbled into a vortex of bribery scandals, giving deals to family members, being hounded by Anti Corruption Bureau probes (he was cleared in 1 probe, but not before the mud had stuck). And recently, Kapondamgaga was the victim of a reported shellacking at State House by alleged MCP thugs, as the vestiges of Chakwera’s regime crumbled. Now, with the fall of MCP, Kapondamgaga is one of those previously powerful figures, just like Colleen Zamba, who I bet we’ll hear a lot more about. Why? Because their well-documented excesses, whether real or rumored, will now be more publicly displayed without fear of reprisals.

Ofcourse much of this schadenfreude, and frog-marching, will be by figures within DPP. Cadets (or glorified cadets) who’ll derive pleasure in vengeance. So expect Kapondamgaga’s and Zamba’s dirty laundry to be splashed all over social media. Expect it on national TV. It will be cathartic for some, cringey for others, but nevertheless entertaining.

And there, right there lies the question: Will the second incarnation of APM be a success? A phoenix rising from the ashes of political scorn, to fix economic ruin with policies that actually shift our present reality in Malawi? Or will the petty score-settling and the new loose cannons who will shortly be prancing around State House dash those hopes for Malawians, and derail this new administration? Turning it back into that familiar jamboree of looting, bribery and lechery on account of blessers? Get ready Lilongwe for the new set of future baby mamas and MG2s who will yet again cause us eye sore with their Tiidas, Vitzes and Demios.

I’m betting on Jane Ansah to restrain that jamboree with some kind of a leash. Before it’s re-awakened.