This week, presidential aspirants in the September 16 2025, General Election started presenting their nomination papers to the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC). This is a defining moment in the aspirants’ ambition and determination to ascend to the highest office in the land because it is also the time the aspirants unveil their running mates.
Almost all political parties have been holding talks for potential electoral alliances to beat the 50 percent-plus-one-vote threshold. But the parties have kept the outcomes of such talks a guarded secret, leaving members of the public to second-guess the running mates for the various aspirants until the day they present their nomination papers.
As of Thursday when I wrote this article, former president Joyce Banda (JB), the first to present presidential nomination papers, had settled for vice-president, Khumbo Kachali, as her running mate. Kachali is JB’s old hand. He was the vice-president when she was the State president of this country from April 2012 to June 2014. They broke ranks in 2014 when JB settled for Sosten Gwengwe as running mate. Kachali went on to form his own party, Freedom Party. But as they say there are no permanent enemies in politics. They are now back together.
At the end of business yesterday, five more aspirants had presented their nomination papers, among them, former president Peter Mutharika (DPP). Others are Odil Chilungo (Independent), Daniel Dube (Nationalist Patriotic Party), Milward Tobias (Independent) and Frank Mwenifumbo (National Development Party).
Fifteen more aspirants will follow starting with Atupele Muluzi (UDF) tomorrow. The last to present will be President Lazarus Chakwera on July 30 2025. It is a busy time for MEC.
Mutharika is arguably one of the biggest contenders in the elections. He unveiled his running mate yesterday. One can only hope he made the right choice out of the many possible candidates who would have bolstered his chances to return to State House.
On Thursday, Aford president Enock Chihana announced earlier in the day at his party’s press conference that his party had partnered DPP and would vote for Mutharika. Meanwhile he announced he had accepted to be appointed second vice-president should the DPP candidate win the presidential election.
Four other smaller political parties which christened themselves as the Northern Alliance bloc were scheduled to sign an electoral agreement with DPP on the same day ahead of the presentation of nomination papers the following day. DPP’s president for the South George Chaponda who was present at the Aford presser confirmed Chihana would be given the position of second vice-president in the event of a DPP victory. But we now know Mutharika’s running mate. The strongest opposition bloc looks like DPP plus Aford, plus North Alliance bloc.
With this confederation, should we say the job is now cut for other contenders including Chakwera?
After Mutharika presented his nomination papers, people are now waiting with baited breath to know who Chakwera will pick as his running mate. Tongues have been wagging about who that person is. Is it engineer Vitumbiko Mumba who was recently touted by a Times 360 Malawi opinion poll as leading on popularity against several other possible choices? Is it former speaker and MCP vice-president for the North, Catherine Gotani-Hara? Or is it Vice-President Michael Usi? Or indeed is it UDF president Atupele Muluzi?
What exactly would influence Chakwera’s choice from any of the above people? Will he choose Mumba because of his popularity nationally which the Times 360 Malawi confirmed in a social media opinion poll? Or, will Chakwera be enchanted by the popular wisdom of trying to achieve horizontal gender balance on leadership positions and thus settle for Gotani-Hara hoping that a female running mate will give him more female votes than Mumba? Or will he go for Usi being the sitting State Vice-President who would use his incumbency advantage to pull votes? Or will the cast fall on Atupele Muluzi believing that he would salvage some votes from the Eastern Region besides splitting other candidates’ votes in this region?
While we can only speculate, Chakwera knows his choice and that his destiny is in his hands. Like Mutharika and other frontrunners in the polls, more than anything else, it is this choice of a running mate that will make or unmake Chakwera.
