By Suleman Chitera
we do not decorate politicians for noise, slogans, or seasonal generosity. We recognize substance. We reward impact. And today, we unapologetically give flowers to a leader who has chosen the harder, more meaningful path of economic empowerment over political handouts—Mzimba Central’s own, Vitumbiko Mumba.
At a time when Malawian politics is too often reduced to plastic buckets, t-shirts, and short-term cash meant to buy silence and loyalty, Mumba has broken ranks with the culture of dependency. By personally initiating a loan scheme for small-scale businesses in Mzimba Central Constituency, he has demonstrated rare clarity: that real development begins with empowering people to produce, not to beg.
Economic empowerment is not charity; it is political liberation. A poor electorate is an easily manipulated electorate. Hunger compromises choice. Desperation distorts democracy. You cannot preach free and fair elections to citizens who must first survive the night. Mumba’s initiative directly confronts this uncomfortable truth by equipping people with capital, opportunity, and confidence to stand on their own.
Loans for small businesses mean dignity over dependence. They mean productivity over pity. They mean sustainability over spectacle. Small-scale entrepreneurs are the engine of local economies, and when they are supported, families stabilize, communities grow, and the grip of political patronage weakens. This is development that multiplies itself long after campaign season ends.
What Mumba is doing stands in sharp contrast to Malawi’s entrenched “handout politics”—a dangerous model that thrives on keeping citizens poor so they can be controlled. That politics is cynical, manipulative, and anti-democratic. It does not build a nation; it traps it. It treats citizens as voting tools, not as partners in progress.
Vitumbiko Mumba has chosen a different road. He is strengthening the electorate, not weakening it. He is creating independence, not loyalty through hunger. That is not just good politics; it is responsible leadership.
Leadership is not measured by how loudly one campaigns, but by how many lives are transformed when the cameras are off. By choosing economic empowerment over populist giveaways, Vitumbiko Mumba has shown that he understands the true purpose of public leadership: to build people, not to control them.
For that courage, for that vision, and for that impact, Vitumbiko Mumba deserves his flowers—now, in his lifetime.
Receive your flowers, Vitumbiko Mumba.
