Review mess wrecking DPP

It never rains but pours in the erstwhile governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) with the latest tussling over release of findings and recommendations of the Functional Review Committee (FRC).

Some members of the national governing council (NGC) Weekend Nation talked to, want the central committee (CC), to release the report for discussion and approval by the NGC ahead of the party’s elective convention next year, and the 2025 general elections.

Two of the NGC members, who claimed to have not received a copy of the report, Ken Msonda and Kondwani Nankhumwa demanded the release of the same and warned that its implementation would be problematic.

The CC commissioned a seven-member special committee in August 2020, to lay the party’s foundation for its rebuilding following the court-sanctioned June 23 Fresh Presidential Election loss.

Chaired by DPP’s vice-president (East) Bright Msaka, the mandate of the review team was to assess the party’s structures, functions and activities and recommend on how they could be strengthened.

The team concluded the exercise and presented its findings to the CC, in June last year, which DPP spokesperson Shadric Namalomba said in an interview, the CC is reviewing.

The CC is headed by DPP president Peter Mutharika and, according to the party’s constitution, other members include its three regional vice-presidents, the secretary general, treasurer general, national director of women and national director of youth.

But a year after the findings and recommendations were presented to the CC, they have remained a privilege of few members of the party’s politburo, according to some NGC members.

The development has compelled some of them, calling themselves ‘Concerned DPP NGC members’, to demand the release of the findings by the central committee.

Msonda, who is coordinator of the discontented faction, condemned the functional review process, describing it as a sham.

He said in an interview on Wednesday: “We are told they finalised the exercise they were sanctioned to do but where is the report? As concerned NGC members, we need the report released today. We condemned this process and this is the product.”

Msonda’s bloc wrote Mutharika, protesting the committee’s composition and instead suggested the appointment of an independent body to conduct the exercise.

“But they insisted and appointed themselves, to review themselves, when they were the same people that took the party out of government. That was a grave oversight,” he charged in an interview.

Nankhumwa, who is DPP vice-president (South), and is also a member of the CC, wondered why the findings and recommendations were taking ages to be released.

Nankhumwa, who has been at loggerheads with Mutharika and other senior party members over leadership issues, claimed he did not receive a copy of the report despite being a CC member.

He said: “I have never received a copy and I am yet to see its content. I don’t know what is happening and this will certainly affect implementation of the recommendations made by the committee.”

But Namalomba rebuked the calls, arguing “there is still a lot of work to be done” on the report.

He claimed the CC was still reviewing the report and making further recommendations, as such, it was not yet in a presentable form.

“Suffice to say, the report will shortly, not beyond August, be presented to the NGC to discuss the deliverables of the functional review, including the revised constitution.

“This is a process and not an event because you will appreciate that since 2005 [when DPP was formed] we have never had a functional review like this one. So, implementation will delay until all the processes are done.

“The NGC will decide when to convene an extraordinary political conference to discuss and adopt the revised constitution and thereafter implementation will begin,” he explained.

Namalomba also condemned people linking the functional review to DPP’s losing of the 2020 election, arguing with or without elections the findings will shape the party “to serve Malawians better whether in or outside government”.

Commenting on the issue, University of Malawi political and administrative studies lecturer Gift Sambo observed that the party’s rank and file members demanding the report’s release were working on the assumption of a democratic society and had legitimate expectation to be furnished with the information.

“However, it is important to view the DPP as a political player operating in an adversarial environment, where each actor is keenly reading the movements and status of the potential challengers.

“In such a context, the DPP politburo, as the custodian of such vital information, has no choice but to be cautious in the way it handles the contents of the report.

“The review was not only meant to help the party in the rebuilding process, but more importantly, the insights were anticipated to inform the crafting of strategies (winning formula) for the next elections.

“Hence, as is the case with all rational political players, such a report can’t be released for public consumption anyhow. It is part of the winning formula and you don’t share that with potential opponents,” he said.

On his part, political commentator Humphrey Mvula noted the central committee’s clinging to the FRC’s findings and recommendations was raising suspicions and makes the process “not a serious proposition”.

He observed it was surprising that more than a year after receiving the report, the CC was still holding on to it instead of submitting it to the NGC for further action.

“The Functional Review Committee produced a raw and researched document and anything else other than that will be a doctored document. The central committee just needed to quickly peruse it and convene an NGC meeting to consider the recommendations and then develop strategies on how to implement or deal with the issues raised,” said Mvula.

The review committee also had, as members, Chikwawa North lawmaker Owen Chomanika as secretary, Chiradzulu Central member of Parliament (MP) Joseph Mwanamvekha, Zomba Chingale MP Lonnie Chijere Phiri, lawyers Samuel Tembenu and Charles Mhango as well as administrative secretary Francis Mphepo.

DPP lost the June 23 Fresh Presidential Election to President Lazarus Chakwera, who partnered Mutharika’s then estranged Vice-President Saulos Chilima of UTM Party on the presidential ticket. Mutharika has repeatedly described the election as a “judicial coup”.