We hope that President Joyce Banda and her surrogates are following the outcome of Italy’s parliamentary election to see how the public has rejected a government which, created and spurred by insensitive cooperating partners, implemented austerity measures that never resonated with the public, but instead pushed them further down to their distress.

This underlines several fundamental points which include.

1. That not all donor imposed policies work. That always policies must be people centred and localised in concept. The policies of Mr Mario Monti, a darling of the EU scare mongers, have not worked in Italy. They were clearly out of touch with the local situation in Italy. The austerity measures, characterised by the Mario Monti imposed and the EU supported severe taxes, have completely flattened the people’s livelihood to their bellies and crippled industry to its knees.

2. That governments or administrations may choose to behave as they please. They may choose to submit their loyalties to cooperating partners and ignore their people’s pleas. They may squeeze policies of the donors through the throats of their screaming populations. They may enjoy the praise of donors while their people writhe in pain. But on the day of reckoning, all the bucks end with the people (the downtrodden voter) not the donor.

President Banda and her surrogates need to draw lessons from this outcome and analyse the in terms of how the policies of the PP administration are resonating with the people, whether the loyalties of this administration in terms of policy formulation and implementation answers to the people’s expectations or to the demands of the donors.

Mario Monti has paid dearly in Italy for misplacing his loyalties. It may happen here too. These things follow the principle of bush fire. Refer to the Arab spring.