Goodall, APM too old for active politics

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), as the government-in-waiting, needs to speak with one voice in and outside Parliament to continue to be relevant in and contribute to the country’s fledgling democracy.

But the party is as divided now as it was when its leader Peter Mutharika (APM) had just lost the Presidential elections to the Tonse Alliance-sponsored candidate Lazarus Chakwera in 2020. Consequently, APM and the DPP have not been able to play their rightful role of providing checks and balances to the ruling Tonse-led administration.

The biggest division in the party is about who should be its torchbearer in the 2025 presidential elections. The first problem is that APM does not have the spine to provide the kind of leadership required of him to steer a party that is out of government to the next elections. The second is that APM has his preferred candidate.

Five people have so far presented themselves as APM’s potential successors. Indeed it is their democratic right to compete for the party’s top job at the party’s next elective conference in less than 12 months’ time. They are former Reserve Bank of Malawi governor Dalitso Kabambe, leader of opposition Kondwani Nankhumwa, former minister of Finance Joseph Mwanamvekha, former minister of Justice Bright Msaka and US-based space scientist Cedric Ngalande. All these people are from one region—South—and that is a problem. But we can discuss this on another day.

It does not require rocket science for someone to know that APM has his own preferred candidate(s) to contest and succeed him at the convention. From the shenanigans in the party, it is obvious Nankhumwa is not one of such candidates. If it was possible to legally or otherwise exclude him as a candidate, DPP would have done so at any cost. Unfortunately it is not. So, APM is pursuing other ways of ensuring that the party leadership goes to his chosen successor.

But to ensure cohesion, progressive democratic institutions give people the power to choose who they want to lead them. This should have been the case in DPP. After losing the State presidency in 2020, APM should have honourably prepared the party for a smooth and seamless transition of power through an early convention where his successor should have been elected. There were such calls from within the party. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Instead of allowing people to open up and present themselves as candidates, APM and his cronies had other ideas. They had their preferred candidates, a development that has not only split the party, but also plunged it into a succession crisis.

The latest calls by the Northern Region DPP team led by Goodall Gondwe that APM should lead the party in the 2025 presidential elections because he is the only one that can unite the former ruling party lacks logic. Obviously, it does not help the cause of uniting the party.

If DPP is now split and only a shadow of what it used to be, it is because APM has failed to unite the party. So just how would his candidature in 2025 unite the entity? Presenting himself as a DPP presidential candidate will also not stop other aspiring leaders from contesting for the same post.

The very reason there are five people vying for the DPP presidency also speaks volumes about the fact that APM’s days are over. Born on July 18 1940, the former president is 82 and will be 84 in 2025. He is old and likely to be senile by the election year.

At that age, it is unlikely he will be able to stand the physical and mental strain that comes with a presidential campaign. Is it not the reason he failed to match the Tonse vigorous countrywide campaign in 2020 when he was younger at 79?

It will be in his own interest that the former president completely retires from active politics and enjoys the rest of the days that God has given him on earth quietly at his Page House.

So someone please tell Goodall, 86, (born on December 1 1936), who should also have gone onto retirement by now that he and his colleagues in the North are misadvising APM and the DPP.