Barely a year after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) recaptured State power in the September 16 2025 General Election, the ultimate prize of Malawian politics has become the source of an intense Executive debate.
Initial optimism that surrounded the political partnership between President Peter Mutharika and his running mate-turned-First Vice President (FVP) Jane Ansah has given way to a highly publicised intraparty friction.
Within the corridors of power, observers are asking how competing factions are managing the inevitable transition and whether the FVP is building an independent trajectory too quickly.
Those concerns entered the national spotlight in July 2026 after an interview on Luntha Television.
Human rights activist Sylvester Namiwa said in the interview that if what he described as the FVP’s administrative isolation continued, Ansah could assume the presidency “within the next two months”.
Far from being dismissed as speculation, the remark was framed as a destabilising attempt to shift power.
The fallout was swift as on July 30 2026, police arrested Namiwa, who is executive director of the Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives. He is on bail, facing charges of treason and publishing false news.
The standoff is not an anomaly. It is a continuation of a structural tradition. In Malawi’s democratic era, no Vice-President has smoothly succeeded an outgoing President through a planned electoral transition. If anything, the office has been a political dead end rather than a stepping stone.
Former VP Joyce Banda only ascended to the Presidency in 2012 in line with constitutional order after the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika with whom she had already fallen out.
Political scientist Gift Sambo, who teaches at the University of Malawi in Zomba and has published widely on democracy and electoral politics, says the office routinely becomes a graveyard for ambition because of deep-seated political habits.
He said in an interview: “Despite the 1994 Constitution providing for the Vice-Presidency, the political culture at the elite level remained fixated in the monopolistic and personalistic tendencies of the past regime.
“This, coupled with lack of ideological coherency at the party elite level, makes the principal-agent relationship between the President and the Vice-President problematic. This is typical of weakly institutionalised parties.”
Private practice lawyer and governance reform advocate Benedicto Kondowe agrees, but points to a deeper confusion.
“The deeper problem is that Malawi has confused constitutional succession with political inheritance,” he argues. “The Vice-President is constitutionally entitled to succeed when the presidency becomes vacant, but is not automatically entitled to become the party’s next presidential candidate.”
He said that until this distinction is respected and succession processes are institutionalised, “the office will remain vulnerable to political rivalry rather than serving as a dependable foundation for leadership continuity”.
That vulnerability, analysts say, is rooted in design and exacerbated by how running mates are chosen.
Mzuzu University development politics expert Chrispin Mphande says selection is driven by electoral tactics rather than party cohesion.
“One chooses a running mate based on potential voting pattern. During the [Bakili] Muluzi era, [former VP Justin] Malewezi was preferred with an aim of wooing voters from the Central Region. Bingu, on the other hand, picked Joyce Banda to coax women voters,” he observes.
The consequence is automatic alienation.
Said Mphande: “Most presidential candidates choose a running mate who is not a core party member.
“In 2014, Peter Mutharika chose Saulos Chilima who was from the corporate world and was not a core member of DPP. In this case, they become a potential threat to the core members. Currently, Jane Ansah is treated not as a core member; hence, the challenges she is facing.”
This threat is reinforced by the Malawi Constitution.
When Malawi adopted multiparty democracy in 1994, no automatic portfolios were attached to the vice-presidency. Under Section 79, its functions are those conferred by the Constitution, legislation or the President.
But Sambo defends the flexibility, saying: “Philosophically, the absence of fixed portfolios is a blessing. Such an arrangement is designed to achieve executive unity, flexibility and adaptability.”
On the other hand, Kondowe calls it a double-edged sword.
“That flexibility can facilitate effective teamwork where relations are constructive, but can also create uncertainty where they deteriorate,” he notes.
The core friction is structural: while the deputy has little independent executive power, Section 83(4) provides that they automatically inherit the presidency if the head of State dies, resigns or becomes incapacitated.
Given that the number two is always one heartbeat away from the top job, Presidents or their cronies begin to treat Vice-Presidents as existential threats.
Sambo traces this to an unwritten regional consensus.
He said: “In the absence of ideological coherency, pragmatic informal rules emerge to shape candidate selection. According to this informal consensus, ideal candidates for the party presidency should come from regions where the party is strong. Unfortunately, most of our vice-presidents do not fit this consensus.”
Kondowe says past rifts differed in nature: Malewezi’s was a party-selection dispute; Cassim Chilumpha’s case exposed the difficulty of cooperation when a President ditches the sponsoring party to form his own; Saulos Chilima’s highlighted both volatile succession under Mutharika and the complexities of the Tonse Alliance under Lazarus Chakwera.
This history leaves every Vice-President with a dilemma, says human rights defender Gift Trapence.
If they remain submissive, they are bypassed at election time; if they build a base, the palace reads it as a premature ouster, he added.
Namiwa’s statement worsened matters. It drew a sharp rebuke from the Public Affairs Committee (PAC).
The influential ecumenical civic watchdog’s spokesperson Bishop Gilford Matonga warned: “No one should be talking about the presidency when the President is still in office.”
He said such timelines threaten democratic order.
Ansah’s office immediately distanced itself from Namiwa’s remarks.
Both Sambo and Kondowe insist succession is governed by law, not emotion.
“I would like to agree with the PAC [spokesperson]. Presidential successions are governed by the Constitution and not emotions. The presidency is fully functional. As such, the question of succession does not arise,” Sambo says.
Kondowe notes that under Section 83(4) the Vice-President assumes office only when a vacancy arises, while Section 87 regulates incapacity through independent medical certification.
He adds that premature succession speculation merely intensifies factional competition and distracts public institutions from their duties.
Attention has also focused on Ansah’s distinct mobilisation through the Dr Jane Ansah Foundation, which expanded across the Southern and Central regions in early 2026 and recently into the North.
Sambo defends its legitimacy: “As a politician at that level, she needs to use every opportunity to demonstrate leadership. Moreover, her office provides her with the needed flexibility to manoeuvre… her charity initiatives, including her active engagement with development stakeholders, is legitimate and politically correct.”
Kondowe aligns with this view, but adds a caveat: “Dr Ansah should, therefore, ensure that her charitable activities are transparent, particularly regarding their funding sources, management, use of public resources and potential conflicts of interest.”
Within the DPP, however, the expansion is viewed as a parallel machine.
At a Southern Region leadership meeting in Blantyre on August 11, 2026, secretary general Peter Mukhito warned: “I have intelligence that some people are creating parallel structures within the party.”
DPP vice-president for the South Joseph Mwanamvekha also warned that “any party official who jumps protocol will not be allowed to address party meetings in the region”.
On the other hand, Sambo sees the DPP gurus’ stance as structural self-defence.
He said: “It is largely structural… The Vice-President is still considered not to be part of the core group in the party hierarchy. It appears core members of the politburo are not prepared to embrace the possibility of being overtaken by outsiders in the conversation relating to 2030 presidential elections.”
The dynamic is complicated by an executive triumvirate. After the 2025 poll, Mutharika appointed Alliance for Democracy leader Enoch Chihana as Second VP.
Unlike Ansah, Chihana enjoys a cordial relationship with the President, who, among numerous assignments, delegated him to represent Malawi at the 46th Summit of the Southern Africa Development Community in South Africa in August 2026.
Anxiety in DPP was further fuelled by Ansah’s private trip to Nottingham, UK, in late December 2025.
Leaked documents suggesting a 15-member entourage sparked backlash amid austerity measures.
Minister of Information and Communications Technology Shadric Namalomba clarified that five people were authorised at a cost of K168 million, but the extension of her stay into January 2026 allegedly without formal clearance was seen by loyalists as asserting autonomy.
The Executive response was containment. In early 2026, Mutharika stripped the Vice-President’s office of the Department of Disaster Management Affairs and oversight of Public Sector Reforms, transferring them to the Office of the President and Cabinet.
The clearest pushback came from Mutharika himself in a video address before a private trip to South Africa in early August.
“I agreed to run for elections and I promised Malawians that I will serve for five years. I am going to serve as Head of State until 2030,” he said, adding that “those who cannot wait should wait until 2030 when there will be a convention to hand over power.”
On Ansah’s future, Sambo is blunt: “She needs support from the party president if she is seriously pondering about leadership beyond 2030. The convention is there to simply rubber-stamp the preference of the principal.”
Section 79 of the Constitution creates the office of the Vice-President and states that they “shall assist the President and who shall exercise the powers and functions conferred on [them]… by this Constitution or by any Act of Parliament and by the President.”
In Section 80, the Constitution outlines the election of the President and FVP, prescribing that “every presidential candidate to declare their running mate (First Vice-President) upon nomination, placing them on the same ballot for concurrent election by direct universal suffrage”.
