Embrace intraparty democracy—PAC
Public Affairs Committee (PAC) has made a fresh call for intraparty democracy in the country’s political parties, saying the trend where leaders go unopposed at party conventions is sending wrong signals.
PAC spokesperson Bishop Gilford Matonga, speaking in an interview on the side-lines of a peace building and dialogue meeting in Mangochi on Wednesday, said it has become a trend for most incumbent political party
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presidents to go unopposed at their respective party conventions. He said this waters down the credibility of the convention.
He said: “We advocate for intraparty democracy and one of the things which we believe in is if they [parties] can allow other competitors to compete, it will give more credibility to the process.
“So, our official position is intraparty democracy must precede interparty democracy because we can’t talk about interparty democracy between political parties if we are failing to achieve intraparty democracy.”
PAC’s position comes days after President Lazarus Chakwera went unopposed as Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president during the party’s elective convention last week.
On the other hand, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) convention committee chairperson George Chaponda said this week that former president Peter Mutharika will go unopposed as party president at its indaba this weekend.
Matonga also said the quasi-religious group will engage all political party leaders to express their commitment on dialogue and mediation ahead of the 2025 General Elections.
He said: “We will wait for the conventions to have the presidential candidates, and then we will engage them and sell them the peace declaration. Thereafter, they will sign [peace declaration] publicly before mediators engage them.”
In an interview yesterday, political analyst Ernest Thindwa echoed Matonga’s sentiment on lack of intraparty democracy in most of the country’s political parties.
He noted that most people do not compete with their incumbent party presidents, saying leaders have more influence in their respective parties.
