Mutharika's Cincinnatus act — and the DPP succession race

Here's a question worth asking about Malawian politics right now: when did you last see President Arthur Peter Mutharika? Not hear about him. See him. Addressing the nation, holding an audience, out and about. If you're struggling to remember, you're not alone.

The last notable sighting was his return from a private visit to South Africa — after which he told people, in essence, not to worry, he was working hard, just not somewhere anyone could see him.

That absence matters, because of how the president himself framed his return to power. In a Times TV interview, he reached for a comparison from ancient Rome — Cincinnatus, the farmer summoned to lead in a crisis, who then quietly went back to his plough once the job was done.

It's a flattering story, and a well-worn one; plenty of politicians have borrowed it over the centuries. The message Mutharika wanted people to take from it was simple: I didn't come back for me, I came back because you needed me, and I'll step away again when the time is right.

His supporters have taken that message and run with it. He's known affectionately as "Mkulukutamoyo," and the case they make for him is straightforward enough — that age isn't really the issue, that what matters is judgement and commitment, and that a leader can do the job perfectly well without constant public appearances to prove it.

Now, there's a reasonable version of that argument. Nobody expects a head of state to be everywhere at once, and quiet, unglamorous work does happen behind closed doors.

But there's a difference between working quietly and being largely absent from public life altogether, and it's fair to say Mutharika, at the moment, is closer to the second than the first.

And here's the thing about that kind of absence — it doesn't create a vacuum so much as an opportunity. While the president has been out of view, his party has not been sitting still. Quite the opposite. The contest over who eventually succeeds him is already under way inside the DPP, and by most accounts it's being fought with real intensity, even though the next election is a full four years away.

A few things are worth flagging here. Jane Ansah, the vice-president — the person who on paper would be next in line — appears to have been sidelined, at least for now.

Meanwhile Roza Mbilizi has emerged as the name generating the most energy, seen by many as the fresher option. And if Mutharika does eventually throw his weight behind someone else, there's no shortage of candidates waiting: Joseph Mwanamvekha, Bright Msaka, George Chaponda, Ben Malunga Phiri — and, intriguingly, the First Lady, Gertrude Mutharika, whose charitable work has recently attracted rather more scrutiny than warmth.

There are others positioning themselves too, further back from the spotlight but very much in the running.

So what does all this actually tell us? It tells us that the less visible the president is, the more the question of what comes after him fills the space he's left behind. That's not a coincidence — it's how succession politics tends to work in parties without a clear, agreed process for handing over power.

People start jockeying early, and they do it quietly, because nobody wants to be seen as impatient for a leader who is, officially, still very much in charge.

The Cincinnatus story only really holds up if the hero eventually does go back to the plough, in full view, having done the job. What Malawi has instead, for now, is a president who says he's working, a party that's already fighting over what happens next, and a public increasingly unsure which of those two things is actually true.