JB secures fresh mandate to lead PP
The People’s Party (PP) has once again entrusted former president Joyce Banda with the mandate to lead the party and represent it in the September 2025 Tripartite Elections as presidential candidate.
She went unopposed at the party’s convention held at Crossroads Hotel in Lilongwe from Friday to on Saturday to elect office-bearers to lead the party for the next five years.
In her closing remarks, Banda said she was impressed with the manner in which EMJ Auditors organised the convention and how delegates conducted themselves throughout the indaba.
“Let me thank all of you for making it to this important gathering and the roles you have played. Most importantly, I want to appreciate the way the whole programme has been conducted.
“To those who have been given different mandates, I would like to encourage you to take your positions seriously, together let us build our party,” she said.
Other uncontested positions include that of vice-president of the party which has gone to Ephraim Chivunde, four vice-presidents representing the party’s four political regions, the secretary general (SG), director of youth and director of women.
Others are director of legal affairs, director of strategy, director of elections, deputy treasurer general, director of campaign and director of international relations.
The position of national publicity secretary has gone to Ackson Kalaile Banda who defeated veteran broadcaster Wellington Kuntaja, but Kuntaja automatically becomes deputy national publicity secretary.
During the opening of the voting on Saturday, Banda alleged that undisclosed non-party members attempted to disrupt the convention, but were intercepted.
“On a sad note, some people who are not members of PP were here to disrupt our convention but they were intercepted and I have the list of their names. I want to tell them that as PP we are minding our business so they should mind theirs too,” she said.
In a separate interview, SG Ben Chikhame, who held the position in an acting capacity before the convention, outlined a number of new innovations in the party.
He said: “We are introducing two new directorates, namely the Information and Communication Technology Department and a Business Development Department towards 2025 elections,” he said.
Chikhame explained that the new directorates have been introduced to create room for youth inclusion and to enhance party financing which he admitted has been a challenge.
Other political parties such as UTM Party, Alliance for Democracy, United Democratic Front, People’s Development Party, National Democratic Party and others are yet to hold their national conventions.
