In politics, noise is often mistaken for power. Silence, however, can be far more unsettling -- especially when it comes from someone who has proven, time and again, that he knows how to roar.
Hon. Eng. Vitumbiko A.Z. Mumba's statement after being granted bail was not a victory speech. It was not defiance. It was not even protest. It was something far more deliberate: a message wrapped in restraint, caution and metaphor.
By invoking the image of a resting lion, Mumba was not asking for sympathy. He was issuing a warning.
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The lion, after all, does not rest because it is weak. It rests because it has assessed the terrain and found no immediate need to strike.
Mumba's choice to extend his self-imposed political hiatus by another 90 days is therefore not an act of retreat, as some would like to believe. It is a strategic pause -- one that allows the new administration to expose its own contradictions without interference.
And contradictions are already plentiful.
During the campaign, Malawians were promised a welfare-oriented government -- one that would cushion the vulnerable, expand opportunity and rebuild trust. Yet in Parliament and in fiscal policy, what is emerging looks suspiciously like austerity dressed in populist clothing. An austerity budget punctuated with freebies is not generosity; it is confusion.
That confusion, Mumba argues, sends the worst possible signal to development partners. Donors do not fund mixed messages. They fund clarity, discipline and direction. A government that cannot decide whether it is tightening belts or handing them out should not be surprised when external support hesitates.
What makes Mumba's intervention politically potent is not what he said, but what he chose not to do.
He did not attack the courts. He reaffirmed his trust in the judiciary. He did not mobilise outrage. He thanked institutions -- churches, alumni networks, MPs across party lines -- subtly reminding the country that legitimacy does not always flow from State House alone.
Even his reference to President Lazarus Chakwera was measured. He acknowledged that if either of them speaks too loudly, too soon, it could be misread as bitterness. That awareness alone separates political maturity from political impulse.
But make no mistake: this was not surrender.
By asking the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to "first find its feet," Mumba effectively shifted the burden of proof onto government. Fix your contradictions. Clarify your economic direction. Govern coherently. Only then, he suggests, will critique become constructive.
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Until then, silence.
In Malawi's political ecosystem, silence from a seasoned actor can be more destabilising than noise from a novice. It leaves room for speculation. It sharpens anticipation. And it denies opponents the comfort of confrontation.
Bunny Wailer's lyric was not poetic flourish. It was political code.
"When a lion is resting, never you try to wake him."
The government would be wise to understand the difference between a sleeping lion -- and a defeated one.
