Lucius hits back at APM
Outspoken United Democratic Front (UDF) Balaka North member of Parliament (MP) Lucius Banda has said President Peter Mutharika is “misguided and ill-advised”.
Banda was reacting to Mutharika’s remarks on Saturday when he said the UDF and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) alliance would continue despite opposition from “one misguided” MP.
The UDF parliamentarian has refused to be part of the coalition since its inception, describing it “unreasonable.”
In a statement issued yesterday, Banda said the President’s reference to the two political parties’ working relationship as a coalition was an illusion because no such alliance exists.
He said: “I believe the President’s comments were made out of ignorance because he is misguided and ill-advised.”
Banda also said as a UDF MP and the party’s leader in the House at the time the coalition was agreed upon, he had never seen or been presented with a signed document cementing a working union between the DPP and UDF.
But UDF secretary general Kandi Padambo, while confessing that there was no signed document, insisted that the coalition still existed.
“There is no written agreement between the two political parties but that does not mean there is no cooperating agreement. We support each other in Parliament so it’s there through our conduct in Parliament,” explained Padambo.
He also said their union was purely parliamentary and could be testified by the fact that the parties have been competing against each other in local government and parliamentary elections. n
