By Our Correspondent          

According to the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation President Bingu wa Mutharika dissolved his bloated cabinet of 41 members. This is a commendable decision and Bingu deserves a  pat in the back. However, Bingu has used his constructional powers to dissolve the cabinet. It is possible he wants to replace dormant ministers with militant ones to fight his battles against real or perceived enemies.  We should therefore not be surprised to find one or two former Civil Society leaders in the new cabinet. The strategy is the like dissolves the like with the like. Another possibility is that he has been prompted by the cries for a lean cabinet and he wants to respond. No doubt bothering his mind is the huge monthly wage bill of around K15million when compared to the need to preserve money to buy fuel and medicines in hospital. Looking at it from another angle, it is also possible he wants to make his cabinet pliant to Peter Mutharika as presidential candidate. This could be a scheming strategy. From the foregoing perspectives, it is obvious the dissolution of the cabinet will only make meaning to peace loving Malawians after the new one is announced by the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation. Now some members of the dissolved cabinet are afraid. They are recalling all incidences they had with Bingu to examine their chances of survival. No doubt others have already visited traditional leaders for more charm. Those who trust prayer have invited their pastors to come and make them repent. It is simply a traumatic moment for the members of the dissolved cabinet. With this one would conclude that the giving of constitutional powers to one person to appoint or dissolve cabinet amounts to dictatorship. Afghanistan which is relatively a new state uses a hybrid system in which the president only nominates names of possible cabinet ministers while parliament approves. In the absence of that system, Bingu has now the opportunity to victim those whom the National Intelligence Bureau has told him are not loyal. Innocent people will suffer because Bingu listens to lies. Anyhow, let us give Bingu the benefit of doubt and see how he will select the trees from the wood.