The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has sounded an appeal to any former member of its national executive committee (NEC) to hand over its party seal within seven days.
The appeal comes at a time the party is preparing to collect nomination forms on January 16 from the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) for its candidates in the May 20 Tripartite Elections.
The party has been placing an advert in the print media since Tuesday appealing to any person keeping the seal to take it to the party’s secretariat within seven days.
The advert, which was placed on the authority of party’s secretary general Jean Kalilani, states that if the seal were not returned within the stipulated period, the party would replace it after declaring it lost.
DPP spokesperson Nicholas Dausi said in an interview yesterday that they expect successive secretaries general (SGs) who occupied the office to know the whereabouts of the seal.
“The successive SGs who have occupied the office did not make official handover processes. The most immediate SG is Wakuda Kamanga who left unceremoniously. We are appealing to those who left with the seal to be courteous enough and bring back the seal within seven days,” he said.
Besides Kamanga, former SGs of the party include current President and leader of the People’s Party (PP) Joyce Banda, Hetherwick Ntaba, Bintony Kutsaira and Henry Chimunthu Banda.
In an interview, Kamanga said: “As far as I can remember, I never handled any party seal or even saw it, except for an ordinary rubber stamp.”
Kamanga added that prior to the 2009 General Elections, he and then SG Chimunthu Banda used an ordinary rubber stamp on nomination papers for its candidates because they did not have a party seal.
