MCP takes high road

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) yesterday moved swiftly to distance itself from its Mapuyu South  legislator Esther Kathumba who said she would move Parliament to enact a law making President Lazarus Chakwera ‘Life President’ for demonstrating transformational leadership.

Speaking during the launch of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) financed Transport and Land Compact at Mzonde ground in her constituency in Lilongwe, she suggested an amendment to the Constitution to allow for a limitless presidency for Chakwera.

However, Mkaka, speaking at a development rally later and at a different venue after the official launch, said Chakwera will respect the existing law and observe the two-term limit.

He said: “I know it is all because of excitement.  Honourable Kathumba was really only trying to commend your [Chakwera] sound leadership, but I heard you speaking to me saying you do follow the law stressing that for you from 2025 you will only go up to 2030.”

The President himself said he only plans to serve up for another five-year term as per the Republic of Malawi’s constitution.

MCP in 1970 declared fouding president Hastings Kamuzu Banda President for Life and Parliament ratified it, officially making him the sole ruler for 23 years until the winds of multiparty democracy swept him out of power in 1994.

But by then, the power he had consolidated with the conferred life presidency endorsement embodied the founding father cum tin-pot dictator to preside over a repressive, murderous regime whose history has haunted the modern day MCP for decades.

However, as the generation that bore witness to the autocratic MCP of Kamuzu fades away, the party has tried hard to rebrand from that image of a cruelty. Kathumba’s declaration threatens those gains; hence, the swift response dismissing the proposal.

Mkaka also commented on assertions that MCP, a key member of the Tonse Alliance, will go solo during the next elections, saying there are other parties MCP is in alliance with and are eager to help Chakwera win the 2025 elections. He cited “the likes of Joyce Banda and others”.

MCP and UTM Party led by the country’s Vice-President Saulos Chilima in March 2020 led the Tonse Alliance, which had seven other parties, through a pact that was kept under wraps before it was leaked in 2022.

Chilima is on record as having said the agreement stipulated that Chakwera would be the presidential candidate for the first five-year term while the current Vice President would lead the way in 2025 in a rotational arrangement.

Taking his turn during the development rally, the President only stressed his interest to contest during the party’s forthcoming convention in August and be the MCP torchbearer during the September 16 2025 General Elections.

“I don’t fear elections, anyone who would like to contest for the position must be allowed without any issues,” he said.

Meanwhile, Youth and Society executive director Charles Kajoloweka said sentiments such as Kathumba’s call for life presidency expose the level of political immaturity among some politicians who hold power, threatening the hard fought democracy.

Said Kajoloweka: “It is not strange when people are drunk with power to utter such ridiculous sentiments. It suggests a level of political immaturity in some of our politicians and that speaks to the quality of the politicians we have and it insults the struggle we had to attain democracy.”

On its part, the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) released a statement to condemn the sentiments that it said is a threat to democracy.

Reads the statement in part: “CHRR strongly condemns such remarks, especially coming from someone who is a lawmaker and who we believe is well versed with the country’s laws as guided by the Republican Constitution. CHRR urged Chakwera to denounce the sentiments.

Malawi denounced life presidency through a national referendum held on June 14 1993 when citizens voted for plural politics over the 30-year one-party dictatorship by founding president Kamuzu Banda and MCP.

The vote culminated in the adoption of a Republican Constitution that prescribes a maximum of two five-year terms of office for the President.