F
ormer president Bakili Muluzi has backed an earlier decision by United Democratic Front (UDF) to invite Malawi Congress Party (MCP) to its two-day elective convention which ends today in Blantyre, saying it reflected political co-existence.
In his speech during the opening of the convention at Comesa Hall yesterday, the country’s first post-one-party president said since its formation UDF has made it its policy to invite other registered political parties to its elective conventions.
Muluzi was apparently reacting to reports of division within the UDF after it emerged that MCP, a key partner in the governing Tonse Alliance, was invited to the opening ceremony.
In the heat of the squabbles, convention organising committee chairperson Aisha Mambo Adams stepped down before rescinding her decision after the party agreed not to invite MCP.
But in his address, Muluzi said as a democratically constituted political party, the UDF should not be a source of hatred and divisions in the country.
He said: “It seems there are some who don’t understand UDF policies. What happens is that the NEC [national executive committee] meets prior to the convention. The secretary general goes to the registrar of Political Parties and obtains a list of all registered political parties.
“In the past, we used to invite even MCP itself. If they were not coming, then they must have had their own reasons. UDF has never been selective. I just don’t know where the problem was [by inviting MCP].”
Ironically, MCP secretary general Richard Chimwendo Banda announced in a statement earlier that the party would not be attending the UDF convention despite its willingness allegedly due to planned violence by some opposition factions.
But Muluzi said UDF, as a party that fought for multiparty democracy alongside Alliance for Democracy (Aford), is a democratic institution that has always advocated for peace among Malawians.
He said that is the reason UDF made it its long-standing policy to be inviting other registered political parties to its gatherings, a trend has been observed in all its recent elective conventions.
When asked if he would prefer UDF to partner with either MCP or Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the September 16 2025 General Elections, Muluzi said that would be the NEC’s decisions.
He said: “I would be taking away their [NEC] responsibility because they will discuss how to move forward. I am just a patron and they [NEC members] don’t even come to me.”
Muluzi insisted that his backing MCP’s invitation to the elective convention does not mean he favours a particular party as suitable to partner UDF.
In both the court-sanctioned June 23 2020 Fresh Presidential Election, UDF partnered with DPP.
Political analyst Wonderful Mkhutche in an interview yesterday, said: “The attempts to restrict MCP are from parochial political views from people who failed to appreciate the large context of the gesture.
“Moving forward, maybe the party should have a critical discussion on this approach and settle on how the future conventions will handle such an issue”.
UDF was the first political party to form a government after Malawi attained multiparty democracy in the early 1990s.
During the opening ceremony, it was announced that son to Bakili Muluzi and UDF’s former president Atupele Muluzi, who earlier quit active politics, had assumed the presidency unopposed.
Meanwhile, hitherto interim president Lilian Patel is on record as having stated that she will not contest for any position.
