Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday attacked leader of opposition and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera, accusing him of seeking donors’ wrath on government for selfish reasons.
The governing party was reacting to reports that Chakwera has written donors to complain about alleged intimidation and attempted bribery of Lawrence Sitolo, an aspiring MCP candidate in the Ocober 17 by-election in Nsanje Lalanje Constituency.
Speaking at a news conference Minister of Information and Communications Technology Nicholas Dausi, DPP spokesperson Francis Kasaila and National Governing Council member Ken Msonda addressed in Lilongwe yesterday, the DPP accused Chakwera of being power hungry.
Dausi said Chakwera had failed to report the alleged malpractices to constitutional institutions such as Malawi Police Service, Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), arguing this indicated his aim was simply to damage the relationship between donors and government.
“The fact that MCP has avoided all these relevant institutions attests to our position that the allegations they are making are a sympathy-seeking stunt, having already known they will lose as expected,” he said.
On his part, Kasaila dismissed assertions that the DPP’s popularity in the Shire Valley was affected by businessperson Sidik Mia’s move to join MCP.
But MCP deputy secretary general Einshower Mkaka yesterday laughed off DPP’s attack as unwarranted, saying the party could not report the case to police and MEC as the institutions are compromised.
“We have no confidence in them. We have written donors because a diplomatic note is a standard practice anywhere in the world, there is nothing abnormal about it,” said Mkaka. n
