Some Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) parliamentary aspirants and party insiders have described the party’s primary elections now coming to an end as “dirty and disorderly”.
But the party’s secretary general Peter Mukhito has dismissed the claims, saying generally the exercise was well organised.
Weekend Nation’s interviews with the aspirants, party insiders and review of the organisation’s internal communication show that the primaries were marred by disputes over schedules, cancellations and the handling of results.
Our findings also show that the challenges intensified internal rifts, especially in the Southern Region, the party’s perceived stronghold.
The development has resulted in the party getting parallel independent individuals running against its chosen candidates.
Among other issues, the sources claimed the party breached its own guidelines and restrictions of delegates to freely choose their desired representatives.
In some cases, they said, instead of the primaries taking place within the respective constituencies, delegates were ferried to the party’s regional office in Blantyre or at Mulanje Park Stadium to vote.
Ironically, the DPP has been vocal in demanding free, fair and credible elections from the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC).
The mess has not spared some of the party’s most senior officials.
Both vice-presidents for the South and East Joseph Mwanamvekha and Bright Msaka, respectively, have had their rivals dissatisfied and opting to run as independents.
Some constituencies whose delegates were ferried to the regional offices include Chikwawa Nkombezi (almost 200 kilometers away from the constituency’s office), Luchenza Municipality, Mulanje West, Blantyre Bangwe, Thyolo Goliati and Blantyre North East.
Primaries for Mulanje Pasani, Mulanje Limbuli and Mulanje Central constituencies were also conducted at Mulanje Park Stadium.
Another controversy was in Mangochi Central Constituency where the party allegedly backed former Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) deputy commissioner general Roza Mbilizi over incumbent Victoria Kingstone.
Kingstone, feeling frustrated with the party’s favouring of Mbilizi, withdrew her candidature from the primaries and announced to contest as an independent.
She cited several irregularities within the party’s primary process, including the alleged removal of long-serving delegates and their replacement with new ones as well as the dismissal of the constituency governor before the primaries.
Following the developments, no primaries were conducted in the constituency and the party proceeded to declare Mbilizi its torch bearer.
Another contentious primary was Chiradzulu Midima, one of the newly-created constituencies where the party allegedly backed the candidacy of its director of elections Jean Mathanga—the former Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) commissioner—who the party declared was its candidate without primaries taking place.
According to one of the aspirants for the Chiradzulu Midima seat, Oliver Nakoma, the constituency initially had four contestants, but the party disqualified two while he decided to withdraw from the race on his own after he discovered that he too was set to be disqualified on what he called tramped up charges.
Nakoma said the primary elections were supposed to have been held on April 24, but they failed because the party wanted Mathanga to go unopposed.
The disqualification is confirmed in a letter dated June 9 2025 from the party’s director of legal affairs Chipiliro Mpinganjira addressed to Mathanga, the two disqualified aspirants, the party’s constituency and district governors.
“But I am a very bitter person. Since 2019, I have kept this party vibrant here and from nowhere they want somebody to represent the party?
“She [Mathanga] is director of elections and in this race she is a referee, but at the same time she wants to be a player. I am going to contest as an independent candidate and will fight this battle,” lamented Nakoma in an interview.
Some party insiders also claimed there were other unexpected situations where party authorities declared certain shadow parliamentarians as winners without holding actual primaries.
“The challenge is that the party politburo already had its favourite aspirants… The party has gambled because it never looked at the popularity of contestants,” said one party insider.
He claimed that all incumbent DPP legislators nationwide have sailed through in the primaries except those in conflict with the leadership or the party.
“They have all been retained because they had full protection and backing of the party. The party supported them in everything and ensured they all excelled except specific MPs who had issues with the leadership or the party itself. And the party did everything to those in conflict with it to make them fall.”
DPP’s Chikwawa Central legislator Salim Bagus has also decided to run as independent after the party chose to support his challenger.
Another aspirant whose candidacy on DPP ticket was allegedly foiled and will now contest as an independent is the party’s Thyolo East lawmaker Masauko White.
He contested in Luchenza Municipality, but the party purportedly imposed DPP National Executive Committee member Chimwemwe Chipungu’s candidacy.
The party insider added that in some cases, the elections were conducted during the night, extending up to midnight, and in darkness with only the aid of motor vehicles’ lights.
In Ntcheu North West, the DPP has proceeded to conduct primary elections re-run in the presence of a court order against the same and further declared former MEC chairperson and Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal Jane Ansah as the victor.
The injunction was obtained by former DPP running mate in the 2019 Presidential elections Everton Chimulirenji who won the first run of the primaries and felt aggrieved to have a re-run.
Apart from changing venues allegedly to favour the party’s preferred candidates, the DPP is reported to have twisted its own voting rules by changing the voting system to suit the incumbent MPs.
Previously, 15 members for area committees were allowed to participate in primary elections but this year, the party reduced that to three members who included area governors, governess and governor for the youth.
However, in an interview on Tuesday, Mukhito said while there were lessons learnt from conducting the primaries, generally, the exercise was “well organised”.
“Learning is a process. We have learnt something in the manner we have managed our primaries. There are still areas we need to improve and we believe next time we will do much better,” he said.
While admitting in an interview on Tuesday that DPP held some primary elections at the party’s regional head office in Blantyre and at Mulanje Park Stadium instead of in constituencies, Mukhito justified the move.
“The party had no choice, but to move venues after threats that emerged in the affected constituencies. The environment, especially where the primaries were conducted in open spaces, was volatile, so we had to move.
“We wanted a manageable number of members so three committee members [delegates] were ferried from each area,” he explained.
Mukhito said he was aware that elections are always contentious and painful to aspirants when they lose after massive investments; hence, the protests and what he described as unsubstantiated claims from some aspirants.
“The party had no influence in the voting of shadow parliamentarians. The people who were ferried were the same who would have voted even if the primaries were conducted within the constituencies. Taking the voters from point A to point B did not amount to influencing the voting,” he said.
Political Science Association (PSA) spokesperson Mavuto Bamusi expressed surprise with the party’s logic to move the delegates from their respective constituencies to vote in Blantyre.
He said: “The arrangement is politically strange. It is a form of ‘gerrymandering’ where politically venues are deliberately manipulated to suit the preferences of certain candidates to the disadvantage of others.
“The arrangement takes away the democratic aspect of local participation and choice-making of delegates within their geographical locations.”
He said the arrangement also uses logistics such as transport to sideline bona-fide delegates who may not be able to travel to the away venue from taking part in the primary elections.
But Bamusi described the primary elections a cocktail of success and pitfalls.
“In certain cases, excessive interference by top DPP leadership has influenced choice of candidates at the expense of other candidates who might have been better qualified. Expectedly, this situation has bred independent candidates.
“The larger implication is that the DPP candidates and independent candidates will lead to the splitting of DPP votes in the affected constituencies. However, the presidential vote for the DPP presidential candidate may not be affected by this vote-splitting because the supporters of the independent parliamentary candidates will still vote for the DPP presidential candidate,” said Bamusi.
Nonetheless, he stated, if the DPP presidential candidate wins the general election, DPP may have weak representation in Parliament.
“The lesson is that DPP needs to put its house in order and strengthen its internal party organisational processes. It also needs to address its weakness and emerge as a strong party in order to boost their chances of winning the 16 September election,” he concluded.
