Alliance partners talk

PPM president Mark Katsonga

“What the Vice-President said can’t hold because it is MCP which was registered for the Presidential election. We have to know what our Constitution says; whatever our people or political parties agree outside the Constitution, doesn’t have any impact. So, he [Chilima] is simply displaying, sorry to say, his ignorance of the law.

“So, the alliance will never fall apart just because of one person, the alliance will remain because all other members will stay and if he has decided to pull out, that will not have any impact on the alliance.

People’s Party spokesperson Ackson Kalaile

“We will look into the matter as NEC. But, in brief, what we can say is that the Tonse Alliance is a set-up within political parties without any legal binding. There is no any law in the country that supersedes the Constitution.”

Mafunde president George Nnnesa

“It’s difficult to comment because we need to go back to the law whether the Constitution allows that an alliance once dissolved, the government also falls.

“The alliances that we have in Malawi do not have legal binding like in other countries such as Kenya, so implementing to dissolve a government as suggested would be difficult.

“I think this should be a wake-up call to relook at our laws to allow alliances as political entities when we go to the elections.”

Petra president Kamuzu Chibambo

He referred Weekend Nation to MCP, saying their response should be able to adequately address any issues that may be there now regarding the issue of Tonse Alliance and what the UTM Party president has said.

“Let MCP come out and talk. I think that way we will be bringing better context to this whole debate.”

Freedom Party president Khumbo Kachali and Alliance for Democracy (Aford) Enoch Chihana did not answer their phones.

Umodzi Party president John Chisi

“I think what we need is just an emergency meeting as an alliance to figure out what to do, because I don’t know anything and I was just shocked to hear that statement.

“As you can see, they were having meetings behind our backs, so we are all in the dark. “We went into the alliance because we thought our manifesto would be taken aboard. We didn’t really understand what was going on so at least the Vice-President has clarified the issues we all wanted to hear, so it’s up to the two of them to figure out how we will move forward and what our role is.”