Introduction
In principle, the Vice President is a loyal deputy, acting as second in charge and an essential figure at the centre of executive power. But in Malawi it has crystallised into a more complex office: constitutional necessity often a source of political dispute.
Yet rather than managing power-sharing in the highest stage of government, Vice Presidency often inherited these power dynamics only to introduce new ones. Nearly every administration since 1994 has had to contend with fraught or openly combative relationships between Presidents and their deputies.
What should have been an office of continuity and support has instead been one of competition, of ostracism, of outright political conflict.
This old trend raises the fundamental principle: is this the single political issue or does this appear to be built into a constitutional structure?
Here the case argues that Malawis Vice Presidency is about not only political contestation, but structural failure: a government-mandated office that balances between the legitimacy of democracy and the impermanence of the constitutional order in which we create conflict not as the exception but the rule.
I. Absence to Ambiguity
After independence in 1964 and subsequently the 1966 Republican Constitution, Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda centralized power in an executive presidency that had no Vice President and, almost, no functioning deputy.
In the one-party system headed by the Malawi Congress Party, rule of law was hierarchical, not partnership. There was a one-level concentration of power, and loyalty, not systemic checks and balances, was the principle of administration.
But it was a lack of a Vice President that made internal rivalries untenable but also took away any kind of scaffolding to enable succession or shared executive responsibility.
The latter was not an omission but simply a fact of life. The system shielded the presidency from internal criticism by avoiding a constitutionally entrenched deputy.
Still, while it produced a succession void in its wake, it created a legacy that would instruct the framers of the 1994 Constitution on such a doctrine as to deter us from reverting to an utterly unadulterated rule.
II. 1994: Reform Without Resolution
The transition in 1994 to multiparty democracy marked a great break from the past. The new Constitution created the Vice President under Section 79, as incorporated into the political system designed for continuity, accountability and collective governance. On paper, it held a sound design:
The President and the Vice President shall stand jointly on the ticket for mutual office
The Vice President shall be principal assistant at the executive position
Succession to the position will be automatic and constitutionally guaranteed
Yet there was a fatal oversight lurking under this facade. The Vice President derived legitimacy from the popular vote, but presidential authority was given fully to the President under Section 88. The Vice President, at that time, was high power but empty. This ambiguity, in addition to its lack of control, would become the decisive point during later fighting.
III. Practical Vice Presidents: An Era of Conflict
The Muluzi Years: Marginalisation Begins
Under Dr. Bakili Muluzi, despite the early efforts to promote cooperative executive leadership, it quickly led to political distancing.
And just as Dr. Justin Chimera Malewezi fell by the wayside, a pro-democracy leader such as Mr. Chakufwa Thom Chihana had problems as he could not get much influence on things like education, health or media and to cap it all accused the very administration he served for wanton corruption.
And it was a subtle pattern that mattered: Vice Presidents, though elected, were structurally disempowered and left their role open to Presidential discretion.
Conflict: The Bingu Wa Mutharika Years
In fact, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharikas presidency, the Muluzi era brought the problem to light, and it was only Bingu wa Mutharikas presidency that did much to make things obvious. Cassim Chilumpha led political disagreement to confront each other out in the open and had it amount to treason charges against him.
However, Chilumpha was still Vice President under the very Constitution that prevented his unilateral removal. The contradiction was on display: there was a powerless Vice President yet who couldnt be dismissed.
This tension led to the constitutional climax with Dr. Joyce Banda. Expelled from the ruling party, she lived alone, a political exile until the Presidents unexpected death in 2012.
Yet this was not the last time that President Joyce Banda’s record was shown from a position of leadership.
The constitution was in fact immediately invoked, and she took over as president. What seemed as a marginal office was immediately the standard against which the Constitution was based.
The Banda-Kachali Alignment: A Quick Note
Their working relationship survived, but it never became a conflict as open as had come to define the office over the past few years. But this era seems less a model than an anomaly, one that indicates a system that values personal alignment over institutional design.
One such implication is that President Joyce Banda herself declined Khumbo Kachali as her running mate in 2014, choosing the much less significant Sosten Gwengwe, both indicators of their deteriorating faith in an executive alliance.
This is an example of institutional mistrust at work, visible, if not institutional: When the purpose and design of the constitution do not anchor the Vice President in a secure executive, political actors revert once more to individual calculations of loyalty.
Seen from a comparative perspective, this same tear would be institutionally stifled in South Africa or Zambia where deputies are appointed and then removed, or institutionally mediated in Kenya where the deputy is also very clear in his or her role. Malawis model, in contrast, leaves the office open for discontinuity just when continuity is sorely needed.
The Return of Rivalry: 2014-2025
The 20142020 presidency held by Prof. Peter Mutharika brought back familiar tensions. Dr. Saulos Chilima (who was initially an ally) became a political challenger who created his own party but retained the vice presidency.
This shift highlighted a central constitutional paradox: a Vice President could mount an effective political assault on the President while remaining an entrenched pillar of the executive. The executive itself consequently became deeply divided within: one administration, two competing nodes of political ambition.
The alliance with Dr. Chilima under Dr. Lazarus Chakwera (20202024) seemed at first to represent a redefinition of executive cooperation particularly in the context of a coalition framework.
But this was to be an imperfect relationship characterized by political discord, authority struggles and lack of trust between the two leaders. It would end in disaster in 2024, when the man responsible for keeping our government afloat, Dr. Saulos Chilima, came down dead in a plane crash, the fate of the relationship shocking the country but also the continued precariousness of the leadership branch.
President Chakweras partnership with Vice President Dr. Michael Usi (20242025) showed signs of strain toward the end of the term. Although less openly combative than previous administrations, the new tensions indicated that the structural issues of the Vice Presidency persist both in persons and institutions.
The pattern of the Vice President emerges again and again, from administration to administration, he or she isnt just a deputy, rather a possible rival within the executive power of a government.
A New Opportunity: Mutharika and Ansah
The new executive duo: Prof. Peter Mutharika as President and Dr. Jane Ansah as Vice President has the potential to rewrite Malawis Vice Presidential history.
By proactively defining roles, communicating openly, and prioritizing collaboration, they can model a functional partnership at the very top of government.
Their success would demonstrate that the office need not be a source of rivalry but can instead serve as a stabilizing force, ensuring continuity and enhancing governance.
Lessons from comparative systems, clear assignment of responsibilities, institutional integration, and conflict-resolution protocols, can guide them in achieving this transformative outcome.
IV. The Structural Fault Lines
The duration of this conflict: not coincidentally, this is constitutional. It continues to be that way.
- Legitimacy Without Power
The Vice President is elected by the people, having no independent powers unless delegated. And the result is a politically significant but functionally restricted office.
- Security of Tenure Without Integration
The Vice President cannot be simply replaced by the President, but also the Vice President is not to be made to play an active role in making the executive decisions. And the result is cohabitation without coherence.
- Silence on Political Divergence
The Constitution leaves this possibility out of contemplation as to whether or not the Vice President can:
Break with the President
Create a new political constituency
Become a kind of virtual opposition party
Political reality seems to have exceeded constitutional design due to this silence.
V. Insights from Comparison: The Design of Conflict
A comparative constitutional perspective would argue that the strains that Malawi exemplifies are not unavoidable. They are, instead, a result of some intentional design decisions instead. In the U.S., the Vice President is the executive power to serve in the Senate balanced between electoral legitimacy and constitutionally delegated power.
While John Adams once derided the office as the most insignificant, its evolution into a policy and advisory partner in the executive has mitigated structural rivalry as it has been absorbed in governance. In South Africa and Zambia, deputy presidents are appointed and removable at the President’s discretion.
A model like that is not only designed to preserve executive unity over autonomous legitimacy, but also to avoid an internally conflicted executive. Kenya is a hybrid model. Similar to Malawi, the Deputy President is elected on a joint ticket, but under a more concrete constitutional framework that gives role description and mitigates institutional drift.
Political tensions persist but they are mitigated by more robust structural guardrails. By contrast, Zimbabwe operates on a more top-down, heavily centralized structure.
Vice Presidents have become appointed and held accountable to the presidency, consolidating power at the expense of autonomy. The UK uses a parliamentary system which makes it an exception entirely.
It enacts collective executive control through Cabinet with political succession less governed by a separately elected deputy and more by party. These models represent a very fundamental trade-off: systems subordinate the deputy when one is to ensure loyalty, empower the deputy only when that becomes necessary to ensure functional fidelity, or disperse authority altogether.
Malawis logic, that it provides electoral legitimacy rather than a functional clarity, leaves a particularly tenuous balance in which competition can take place, if not be buttressed with structural justification.
VI. Beyond the Quagmire: Practical Reform Proposals
For the Vice Presidency to maintain stability, Malawi will have to have constitutional reforms that are substantive, specific and actionable:
- Define Executive functions: Set statutory portfolios or administrative duties for the Vice President to bestow the office with substantive operation and not leave it wholly in the hands of the presidential delegation.
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Clarify Political Alignment Rules: Amendment of the Constitution to clear parameters on when a Vice President can run to challenge the President while he is in office and to minimize intra-executive conflict.
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Consider Alternative Selection Models:
● Election but More Define Functional Responsibility (Kenya Model)
● Transition in Presidential Appointments for better coherence (South Africa/Zambia model)
- Conflict Resolution Mechanisms: Set up mediation protocols, legal arbitration of the dispute between the President and Vice President in those instances in which they dont face a public or even political crisis.
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Succession Security: Outline the procedures and circumstances for succession in which the Vice President can assume the office; this gives clarity and prevents power struggles from occurring or gaining traction.
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Institutional Embedding: In so doing, form norms and administrative structures where the Vice President becomes embedded in decisive decision-making organs as stakeholders in governance, not opponents of politics, or even outsiders.
It would bring the Vice Presidency not long down the list of the causes of instability in structure but into the realm of useful and functional governance, which would bring Malawi even closer to its internationally consistent, best practice in constitutions on structural principles.
Conclusion:
Malawis Vice Presidency is an ambivalent juncture at the nexus of constitutional will and political reality. Once a bulwark against instability, it became a persistent source of it. From its absence under Banda to its contested space under the democratic era, the office has barely settled back in. The point here, however, is not that the Vice Presidency does not have to exist, but it does have to be designed.
Without clarity, purpose and alignment, the office will always be a juggernaut that will swing from irrelevancy to contest. Staying second in command doesnt have to mean being first in conflict. But in Malawi, that change will cry out for more than political goodwill: It will need constitutional bravery.
