Tag Archives: MCP president Lazarus Chakwera

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Central region chiefs breathe fire against MCP violence

Malawi News Agency (MANA) 1 Comment

Central region chiefs breathe fire against MCP violence

By Daniel Namwini

Central Region chiefs have condemned the violence perpetrated by Malawi Congress Party after the announcement of the May 21 2019 presidential results which showed that President Peter Mutharika was the winner.

The chiefs said MCP’s violent acts after elections was a clear demonstration that the party does not embrace democratic principles and that it has not changed from its past history.

The chiefs further condemned the party for invading the Capitol Hill arguing that doing so was out of ignorance because Capitol Hill is for civil servants and not politicians.

Addressing a news conference on Thursday in the capital Lilongwe, leader of the chiefs, Senior Chief Kaomba distanced the Chewa chiefs from MCP’s brutal acts.

“MCP should not claim to be Chewa and the Chewa cannot claim to be MCP,” said Kaomba who was flanked by other Chewa chiefs who included Tsabango of Lilongwe, Nthondo of Ntchisi,Mwansambo of Nkhotakota, Makwangwala of Ntcheu and others from Dedza, Mchinji, Salima and Kasungu.

The chiefs asked MCP president Lazarus Chakwera to desist from violence and remain calm and wait for the outcome of the electoral court case which the party has filed. The chiefs further said MCP’s demonstrations were sub judice as the matter is in court.

On his part Makwangwala said: “Demonstrations retard development as people cannot go work or their businesses and children cannot go to school.”

Taking his turn, Tsabango said MCP went overboard by invading the Capitol Hill and flushing out civil servants. He described the act as uncalled for arguing that Capitol Hill is for civil servants and attacking them would affect government operations and the common man.

On his part, Mwansambo said terrorizing the country is not in the best interest of Malawians as the country is known to be God fearing and Warm Heart of Africa. He said the country should be striving to protect its good history of keeping peace known all over the world.

MCP president declared himself Commander In Chief during the vote counting when he slightly led in the votes when Malawi Electoral Commission gave first results after counting from about 1000 polling centres out of 5002 centres.

MCP supporters went to the streets and invaded Capitol Hill on Tuesday and further demonstrated yesterday in some parts of the central region including the Capital City.

The party is disputing presidential election results.

According to MEC official results Mutharika won by 38.57 percent while Chakwera 35.41 percent and SaulosChilima of United Transformation Movement 20.24 percent.

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“Malawians won’t allow much touted elections rigging claims to take place”-Chakwera

Maravi Post Reporter

Malawians won’t allow  much touted elections rigging claims to take place 

NSANJE-(MaraviPost)-The main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) says Malawians cannot allow elections rigging to take place as it has been repeatedly  claimed by the leaders of the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who is also Malawi’s head of state and government, President Peter Mutharika and leader of the breakaway UTM, Saulos Klaus Chilima.

On behalf the country’s oldest party, MCP President Lazarus Chakwera stressed the re-assuring point when he addressed crowds during a political rally at Bangula United Ground in Nsanje-Lalanje Constituency at the end of Friday’s whistlestop tour to four constituencies in Nsanje District.

 

Charged with boldness, Chakwera made it point blank that: “Malawians of 2014 are not the same ones in 2019 who would end up carelessly allowing their precious vote to get stolen by the so called rigging experts, because, Malawians of today are fed up with a failed government which is on the move fast approaching the exit door.”

 

With so much nostalgia, the MCP leader verbally revived the spirit patriotic spirit of October 17, 2017 parliamentary by- elections whereby the people of Lalanje refused anyone to tamper with their vote through self monitoring vigils until the final result was announced.

 

Chakwera therefore urged Malawians to adopt the same patriotic spirit in the forth-coming May 21 elections.

 

Said Chakwera: “I would like to urge to vote wisely because elections come once in every five years.”

 

On Nsanje World Inland Port project, Chakwera condemned the current DPP administration for the broken promise President Mutharika had in 2014 that if ushered into power, he would complete the port project and revive the dream of turning Nsanje District into a harbour city, where vibrant economic activities would transform people’s lives.

 

Chakwera therefore pledged to revive the beautiful project once shoveled into government through the May 21 vote.

MCP-PP supporters

 

In his tight whistle-stop tour programme, Chakwera started the strenuous campaign endeavour by addressing huge crowds at Nyachilenda Secondary School Ground in Nsanje South Constituency where among other things, he pledged to construct a tarmac road from Nsanje Boma to the Malawi-Mozambique of  Marka.

 

The untiring MCP leader also addressed huge crowds at Dinde Primary School Ground in Nsanje South West and also at Mpasa Community Day Secondary School (CDSS) in Nsanje Central Constituency.

 

Prior to Chakwera, in all the four constituencies, the MCP Vice President and Official Running mate, Muhammad Sidik Mia assured the people that, MCP with the leadership of the God fearing man in the name of Lazarus Chakwera is a demonstration of love by God to bail them out from the dungeon of a corrupt system which through its entire leadership has miserably failed Malawians.

 

Mia particularly faulted the current administration for cheating the people of Nsanje that it would construct a tarmac road from boma to Marka.

 

“They took the heavy machinery and lined it along the road just to drive you into thinking that, they have started the project works but it’s all cheating because all they are votes to get back into power,” he said.

 

Also speaking present during all four whistlestops as well as speaking during the main rally in Bangula was Peoples Party (PP), Ephraim Chivunde, who apart from articulating sad tendencies of nepotism by the current administration, the youthful politician urged the people of Nsanje and the entire Shire Valley region to utilising their chance towards a better future by voting for the great combination of Chakwera for President and Mia for Running mate.

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MCP to bankroll aspirants in 193 constituencies; Road to May 21 polls

Maravi Post Reporter

one of MCP aspirants from Zomba central receiving nomination fees 

BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost) – The leading opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) on Sunday announced that it will feature aspirants in all 193 constituencies across the country for the forthcoming May 21 tripartite elections.

MCP President Lazarus Chakwera told the unveiling dinner in Blantyre that the party will pay those that will not afford the nominations fees plus a starter-funds for campaign

The move is to check vote rigging as all constituencies will have the party’s representatives.

Chakwera said there is no reason for this elections the party fail to feature aspirants lawmakers and wards councilors.

“This time around no one will steal a vote from us for the reason that we don’t have representative. We will make sure that every vote counts”, assures Chakwera.

During the dinner, MCP Vice President Sidik Mia accepted to be Chakwera’s runningmate.

Chakwera and Mia are expected to present their presidential nomination papers this Monday morning at COMESA Hall in Blantyre.

Opinion, Politics, Top News

Chakwera’s last chance to be Malawi president: Winning gambit with Mia?

Maravi Post Author

By Golden Matonga 

 

It’s been a long time since the main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) last tasted levers of power but we will not wait long to find out if the decision by MCP president Lazarus Chakwera, to name— early— his running mate for next May’s presidential elections, was a masterstroke.

Or that giving the berth to politician-cum-businessperson, Sidik Mia, was the last jigsaw that solves MCP’s elusive election winning puzzle—something that has alluded the country’s oldest party since return of democracy in 1994.

All we can do is haphazard a few guesses on why Chakwera has opted for Mia: his rumoured wealth, regional politics or pressure from within the party.

Indeed, ever since Gwanda Chakuamba ditched MCP after losing the seemingly permanent leadership fight with nemesis John Tembo, MCP has struggled to win any votes in the southern region.

That for the first time— since Chakuamba’s era—the party won a parliamentary seat in Nsanje district (while nationally resoundingly winning 5 out of six contested by-election seats), means the Mia effect should not be wished away.

In each past presidential election, MCP has always come close, but nominally fell short of victory. A carefully picked 2019 running mate was one of the strategies supposed to fix that shortfall, by ensuring the party boasts its votes where it has traditionally polled dismally.

With the recent IPOR study indicating Chakwera is statistically tied in the presidential race with incumbent Peter Mutharika, an alliance with another party such as former president, Joyce Banda’s People’s Party or Vice President Saulos Chilima’s United Transformation Movement (UTM) was more attractive option.

Chakwera, perhaps motivated by other calculations, has passed the option.

Still smarting from the party’s recently-quelled bitter internal fights, Chakwera might have been afraid of upsetting Mia—and risk another internal civil war. And the ugliness of the rhetoric from some senior MCP officials when publicly pushing back the alliance suggestion, reveals the volumes of pressure Chakwera was placed under to pick Mia and why he has broken with tradition to announce his running mate early.

If that’s the rationale, one of way of seeing it is that Chakwera’s political stamina is very questionable but a more generous view would be that he is calculated.But something else must be addressed.

While protecting the slot for its benefactor, the pro-Mia MCP faction, almost inevitably for politicians, sold us a few lies, chief among them, that MCP mustn’t go into an alliance because the other parties are “compromised and tainted.”

We know, with gruesome certainty, that this is disingenuous. And you don’t have to look further than Mia, who has been UDF, DPP, PP, UDF, retired and now MCP, to realise that the new MCP is full of old recycled folks who fits the “compromised and tainted” billing.

But whatever you make of it, Mia will bring MCP some votes. Mia will also be found repulsive mostly likely by some of the very voters who can’t vote for “compromised and tainted.”

In 2014, the ‘Chakwera for President’ euphoria profited from a nationwide yearning for change. The youth, educated and urban class were very much the cornerstone of this movement.

Today, those voters, as the IPOR study told us, are readying to vote Chilima.

Part of the explanation is that after serving in public office for four years, Chakwera is no longer the exciting ‘breathe of fresh air candidate’ he was four years ago. Back then, he was an eloquent—still is— ordinary church folk who looked like ‘one of us’.

He was not rich and represented a party that had not been in power for a long time—hence not “tainted and compromised” in the eyes of substantial number of voters. Hence Chakwera could lambast the other parties that had given us cashgate and other excesses of the democratic era.

That allure is gone. A running mate alone can’t fixed that but by settling for Mia of the same old establishment he once attacked, Chakwera’s pragmatism has made full circle.

Next year, Chakwera will find out, alongside the rest of us, if his party—and own transformation—has been received positively by the voters and whether, finally, MCP’s exile from power can come to an end.

Next year, however, is Chakwera’s last chance at getting State House, in Mia, he must pray, he has thrown a winning gambit.

 

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of the Publisher or the Editor of Maravi Post

Malawi, Obituaries, Top News

MP Kabwira leads Ex-MYP member Helema’s burial who died in road accident

Lloyd M’bwana

SALIMA-(MaraviPost)- The main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Salima North-West Constituency, Dr. Jessie Kabwila on Tuesday led hundreds of mourners in burying  former Malawi Young Pioneers (MYP) member Helema.

Helema aged 60 died on Sunday at Ntcheu district hospital  after  was severely injured in a road accident at Mwalawoyere in the wee hours of September 30, 2018.
According to the bereaved family, the former MYP member left home to sell goats in Balaka but met the fate on return as the car he was traveling in overturned several times.
The late Helema who was among Ex-MYP currently holding vigil at Kamuzu Memorial Tower-Area 18 in the capital Lilongwe, has gone without getting his dues.
Former MYP members have been on vigil since July 2017 demanding the quick payment of their terminal benefits that the Government owes them as civil servants.
Despite Malawi government promising to meet their demands, a year and three months have elapsed without fully paying them.
Representing MCP President Lazarus Chakwera on the late Helema burial at home village, Mthukwi-Chitala ward, Traditional Authority (T.A) Khombedza, MCP Kabwila expressed sadness over the death of the MYP member.
Kabwila says the entire party including President Chakwera was shocked with Helema’s death.
She added that the late Helema was instrumental to MCP’s constituency structures saying the party lost a great man.
“MCP President Chakwera sent me to  console the bereaved family that the party is with them in this trying time. The late Helema was instrumental to the party’s foundation.
“This also  give us an opportunity that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government must fast-track paying these former MYP members. They need to be paid their entitlement. They cant be on vigil  for a year. This is very sad,” says Kabwila.
The former ex-military wing soldiers, are demanding MK1.6 million to 2,600 members as their dues after they were forcibly disarmed by the Malawi Defense Force in 1993 in what is infamously called Operation Bwezani.
Malawi, Politics, Top News

MCP admits convention rushed to deter injunctions

Special Absalom

LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) has admitted that it held a quick convention after the Supreme Court vacated an injunction their embattled former secretary general Gustave Kaliwo took as one way of avoiding further injunctions.

Re-elected MCP president Lazarus Chakwera said this on Sunday night when he officially closed the convention which took place from May 11-14 at the party’s headquarters at Lilongwe City Centre.

Chakwera observed that the injunctions derailed the new agenda for the party as the legal battle between the party and the Kaliwo camp—which also included Richard Msowoya, Tony Kandiero, James Chatonda Kaunda and Jessie Kabwila—brought the party to a standstill as time was being spent at the courts instead of discussing important issues.

“I would like to appreciate the organising committee for their preparations of the convention. Though they did it in a hurry, but here we are by the grace of God we have done it. We had to do it as soon as possible after the vacation of the court order to avoid the running battles on an injunction that was there,” said Chakwera.

MCP has been in running court battles with its former Kaliwo and four others for suspending them in the party after Kaliwo called for an emergency convention mid-last year.

Chakwera obtained a court injunction stopping Kaliwo from holding an emergency convention for the party from July 7 to 9 2017 with parallel structures.

Kaliwo told the media in Blantyre to prior to the indaba then that he called the convention to clear their differences based on Article 40 of the MCP constitution which states that district committees or the national executive committee (NEC) are mandated to call for a convention.

According to Kaliwo, half of the district committees called for the foiled convention.
However, the case was discontinued last month (April) by Chakwera on the grounds that the matter could better be resolved within the party.

But despite this, there was an injunction again at the High Court in Blantyre which restrained the party from holding a convention which it had planned from April 29 2018.

According to a court order signed by Justice Mike Tembo on May 7 2018, the party was not supposed to hold a convention until matters relating to the suspension of Kaliwo and the other four was resolved.

After the order, the MCP NEC reinstated the five in their positions before calling for the convention which ended Sunday night.

However, Kaliwo has continuously said the convention was illegal and that according to the party constitution, Richard Msowoya is the acting party president.

Livingstonia University political analyst George Phiri described the convention as an act towards undermining democracy by distributing positions instead of voting.

Phiri said by just distributing some positions, some people given the positions may not be able to perform.

“In summary, I can say democracy has been undermined greatly. We have also seen gender insensitivity in the positions. They could have allowed people to contest as those who wanted to contest wanted to deliver, but what has happened in undermining democracy,” said as quoted by Nation Newspaper.

Kaliwo, Kabwira, Msowoya and others are yet to respond to the outcome of the MCP convention.

Malawi, Politics, Top News

MCP leader Chakwera given seven days ultimatum to fire Kaliwo

Maravi Post Reporter

LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) youths movement on Friday petitioned the party’s policy making body—the national executive committee (NEC) to suspend Party Secretary General, Gustavo Kaliwo, accusing him of sowing divisions and bringing the country’s oldest party into disrepute for his incompetence in failing to show policy direction in the party.

The petition comes when MCP president Lazarus Chakwera has called for a NEC meeting to take place at MCP national headquarters in Lilongwe from 1pm on Sunday amid dissent from his top five lieutenants, including Kaliwo.

Delivering the petition, at the party headquarters, the movement Chairperson, Ndaila Onani , said they have given Kaliwo seven days to resign on his own.

The youth members matched around the party headquarters before delivering the petition to party second deputy secretary general Elsenhower Mkaka.

“With recent developments since December 2017 we are greatly surprised that the Secretary General together with the First Vice President [Richard Msowoya] have been challenging the President on the NEC members issues. In our view of these developments it turns out to be a very serious and gross breach of party core values of four corner stones,” said Onani.

Receiving the petition, Mkaka promised to deliver the petition to the President who will be chairing NEC meeting on Sunday.

Mkaka said he is sure the petition will be deliberated on during the meeting. MCP legislators already recommended that Kaliwo must be booted from his position.

The MCP legislators accused Kaliwo, among other things, that he absented himself from major party functions for two years including the whole period of the six by-elections held in October without giving any reason.

They also alleged that Kaliwo has chosen a path to destroy the party. But Kaliwo, a lawyer by profession, said he remains MCP secretary general and no one can force him out until the party convention.

“I find this whole issue disingenuous,” said Kaliwo, the former Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) .

Kaliwo together with Msowoya, second deputy president Macdonald Lombola ( who has since denied signing )’ deputy secretary general James Kaunda and treasurer general Tony Kandiero—penned Chakwera to tell him that he was flouting the MCP constitution and going against his own words.

A political commentator at the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College Earnest Thindwa faulted the five for putting their grievances in writing and, according to him, leaking them to the media.