PP U-turns on parliamentary elections
Former governing People’s Party (PP) has backtracked on its earlier resolution to field aspiring members of Parliament (MPs) in only 165 out of the 193 constituencies.
PP director of elections Lawrence Bisika said yesterday a verification exercise has proved the party’s readiness to contest in all the 193 constituencies.
On January 1 2019, Bisika announced in Lilongwe that the party would not field parliamentary candidates in 28 constituencies and 330 out of 462 wards in the Local Government elections.
“Now we have finalised the verification process and we have completed primary elections so we are set to field our aspirants in all constituencies,” said Bisika.
The party conducted its primary elections in only 48 constituencies and endorsed 144 aspirants because they had no challengers.
For Local Government elections, the party conducted primaries in 112 wards and, according to Bisika, some candidates were just endorsed while in some wards they will not field candidates.
However, the party is yet to identify an aspirant for Karonga South where polls were deferred to next week Friday (February 1) after one of the contestants got ill and could not take part in the primaries at the scheduled time. Commenting on the reversal, political and social commentator Martin Chiphwanya said Banda’s long absence created a leadership vacuum and weakened the party at all levels and the change in tune could be interpreted as a step towards PP’s revival.
