The Maravi Post

I had some interesting feedback on my take on the declaration by one Peter Arthur Mutharika as potential candidate for 2014. I am using the word 'potential' advisedly because no matter how Peter tries to convince us how democratic he is as long as he is a Mutharika the DPP candidature is his for the taking. No one can be allowed to challenge him meaningfully (if you see what I mean.)

I rarely reproduce readers' feedback on this page because I believe the feedback is for me, not for my page. I would be lazy to wake up one day just to bombard you with feedback and claim I have "muckraked" that Sunday.

But the drift I got last week was that not many people gave Peter much of a chance to make an impact on 2014. They agreed with me that he enters the race already "damaged goods" because of the "Mutharika curse" he carries. Of course some warned "it would be foolhardy for amai to dismiss Peter outright". But many agreed with me that Peter has to break from Bingu if people would consider him a serious candidate. "To be fair," a reader wrote, "Bingu came in with lots of promise but arrogance jmade him lose the plot so much so that Peter has to work very (some would say too) hard to erase that". Indeed, a lady wrote, "Bingu is an albatross around Peter's neck."

I wrote my piece before Peter offered an olive branch to the media by apologising for what his brother's administration did to the Fourth Estate. "As a constitutional lawyer how could Peter let his brother go astray as he did?" wrote one reader. "Peter is a disappointment; he helped his brother go astray, he can't fool us now."

But while largely agreeing with my "interesting analysis" (I must be allowed to gloat sometimes!) one reader faulted my take that Peter had "burnt his bridges with Malawi", saying although he married abroad Peter has been interested in developments in Malawi all along. "He was legal advisor and active member of the Malawi Action Committee."

Notwithstanding that I would like to give the last word to a 12-year-old girl who called me when I was fast asleep. "I'm a student of English language," she said. "What does 'keep the powder dry mean'?"

Mmmh! I guess Peter knows!