Is this MCP’s second coming?

Despite its imposing history of leading the nation to independence glory in 1964, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), since its fall from grace in 1994, has struggled to revamp its political relevance.

Founded in 1960 by nationalists Orton Chirwa and Aleke Banda after British colonialists had banned Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), the party’s central aim was to gain independence from London.

However, after securing self-rule, the party—with Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda at the helm—eliminated multipartyism, eventually becoming the country’s sole party.

It went further than that.

Every voice seen to be critical of the party was ruthlessly suppressed and permanently erased.

The classical casualties, tragically, became the same Orton Chirwa and Aleke Banda that built the party from scratch and handed it over to Kamuzu Banda on a silver platter.

Chirwa died in prison whereas Aleke spent several years in jail and under house arrest.

The dictatorship that was the heart of the party also became the architect of its fall.  In 1994, the party lost its glory to United Democratic Front (UDF) under the leadership of MCP’s one time senior member Bakili Muluzi.

The search for transformational leadership to realign the party—now in opposition and operating in a democratic terrain—to the changing winds of political times saw the ailing Kamuzu Banda anointing Gwanda Chakuamba, who had been in prison for 13 years, to lead the party.

Kamuzu Banda left out John Tembo, the man many remember as the ‘most powerful man’ during MCP’s 30-year rule.

With Tembo as his vice, Chakuamba—who during 1999 general elections entered into a coalition with Chakufwa Chihana’s Alliance for Democracy (Aford)—failed to unseat the then incumbent, Muluzi.

Despite that, Chakuamba’s MCP managed to increase its parliamentary representation from 56 MPs in 1994 to 66 in 1999.

Apart from increasing the number of MPs from its base, the Central Region, from 51 in 1994 to 54 in 1999, the party also increased its representation in the Southern Region from five to eight and managed to get four MPs from the North after getting none in 1994.

Though Chakuamba’s leadership helped the party to have a national appeal in contrast to the party’s Central Region bias, leadership tussle, spearheaded by his vice, sprouted—and wiped out any gains it had made.

So tense was the Tembo-Chakuamba rivalry that in 2000, MCP held parallel conventions—one in Blantyre where delegates elected Chakuamba as president and another in Lilongwe where Tembo emerged the preferred leader.

This political comedy was the epic leadership tussle that defined the party’s bloodstream.

The drama roared on until 2003, when the party returned to its senses and held another convention.

Tembo rose to the mantle at a convention punctuated by violence—a mark of the enduring conflict between the two politicians.

Unfortunately, even when Tembo, in his acceptance speech at the time, commended Chakuamba as a ‘second hero of MCP after Dr Kamuzu Banda’, and even when Chakuamba promised to work with Tembo to ‘steer the party to its original glory’, the party disintegrated a few months later.

A defeated and bitter Chakuamba formed his own Republican Party and so did Hetherwick Ntaba, the party’s spokesperson at the time, who settled for his own New Congress for Democracy (NDC).

Both parties immediately sank into political oblivion.

With the two gone, Tembo, pulled through and gave the party the leadership it needed to survive—barely.

In the 10 years Tembo was at the helm, the party, apart from being stuck in opposition since 1994, hardly shows a healthy graph if you take it from the perspective of parliamentary representation.

On Tembo’s watch, the party’s parliamentary representation dropped from 66 in 1999 to 60 in 2004 before crashing to 24 in 2009.

Equally disturbing is the party’s national appeal. Under Tembo, MCP’s representation in the Northern Region dropped from four MPs in 1999 to one in 2004 and zero in 2009.

The Southern Region has been worse. After getting eight parliamentary seats in 1999, the party has failed to get any representation in the two successive elections.

Additionally, just like Aford in the North during the politics of the fallen Chakufwa Chihana, the saying was true of the Central Region as MCP’s ‘bedroom’.

But that saying has lost its power and relevance.

During the 2009 elections, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) grabbed 14 MPs in the Central Region and raked in decisive presidential votes in MCP’s traditional districts of Ntchisi, Mchinji, Kasungu and Tembo’s own home district of Dedza.

That is not all.

MCP maintained the 2004 poor record in the North and South, at the same time its parliamentary seats dropped from 59 in 2004 elections to 24 during 2009 elections.

“This is a potent symbol of a party that is not just failing to expand. It also speaks volumes of a party that is even failing to maintain its traditional base, the Central Region,” says Michael Jana, a political analyst.

One interesting feature that has defined MCP since its fall from grace in 1994 has been its failure to attract newcomers.

For all the years it has been in opposition, it has always been losing its heavyweights without attracting new ones to its fold.

But things have drastically changed of late. The nation has seen the party attracting high profile leaders some of whom have made critical sacrifices of their earlier rewarding careers to vie for the party’s presidency.

Dr Lazarus Chakwera had to resign from leading Assemblies of God Church, a prestigious position that earned the man of the collar a coveted place in international Christian circles.

Felix Jumbe had to give up leading Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) where he was one of the most respected voices on agricultural policy.

Retired Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo had to retire ahead of schedule, coinciding with the MCP’s leadership race.

The question is: Why is the MCP suddenly attracting so many credible and big name professionals into its fold?

For Joseph Chunga, political researcher with the Centre for Social Research at University of Malawi’s Chancellor College in Zomba, the coming in of new high profile members reflects the party’s long time need of rebranding.

But it may also mean that the Malawian population in general is prepared to give MCP a second look, considering the questionable track record of governing parties that succeeded the oldest party.

With Tembo—whom many condemned as the party’s stumbling block to progress—out of the picture, what does this mean for the party in terms of its future electoral performance?

Underlining that Tembo’s rejection was not strange; Chunga argued that MCP’s main challenge over the years has been rebranding.

“To rebrand, there are three stages the party need to go through. One, removing Tembo, the stumbling block; two, getting a new and progressive leader and three, the new leader having the capacity to work with the old and the new, and even those that have lost in the process of rebranding the party,” he said.

Even Tembo, in his last speech as the party’s leader yesterday, said MCP remains the party to beat.

Chunga believes that MCP still has the structures strong enough to put up a more than decent fight to run Capital Hill and the Parliament Building.

“What the party needs is just a leader who can connect the party to modern needs. Through that, the party can reclaim its glory,” he said.

But does the election of the new leader signal MCP’s second coming.

Only time will tell.