PPM against recycled politicians

People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) says the country’s democracy is failing to grow because of the tendency of recycling politicians at the expense of the youth.

PPM’s secretary general Wellington Chatepa said this on Sunday after re-launching the party’s wing at Mzuzu University ahead of the general elections in 2014.

Chatepa said it is high time parties entrusted the running of the nation in the youth.

“Recycled politicians are a danger to democracy. Government is a dynamic phenomenon, if people stick to old ideologies, the ideas become stagnant,” he said.

Speaking after another meeting the party held with the business community at Mzuzu Hotel, PPM’s director of legal affairs James Makoza Chirwa, who was Malawi’s first Ombudsman, said it was important for political parties to have clear succession plans.

“Most political parties in Malawi do not show succession plans. When you continue with the same people, then it shows that you have no succession plans. PPM is engaging the youth in colleges and universities to prepare them to take over leadership,” Chirwa said.

Political commentators have observed that most political parties in Malawi are dogged by the founder syndrome and that Malawi politics is pivoted on politicians who change political parties anyhow.