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Chakwera must repudiate MCP’s past

Even the harshest of MCP critics must admit that the way the party conducted itself over the weekend during its long-awaited convention was without any blemish.

To put the icing on the cake, the party of Kamuzu Banda decided to get a clean break from its rather dark past by dumping the last man standing from that era, John Tembo, and replace him with an otherwise hitherto wood-pecker politician in the name of Dr Lazarus Chakwera.

A bit of context on what MCP convention delegates did over the weekend is required here.

Malawians consigned MCP to wail and gnash teeth in the political wildness and purgatory for the past 20 years for the mere reason that they did not trust a party that ruled them with an iron fist and sent scores of its critics to their early graves and, those who were lucky to run away, into exile.

This was made worse by the fact that until Sunday, MCP continued to be run by an individual or individuals who had something to do with that past and it did not help matters as Malawians added two plus two.

MCP can choose to manufacture all sorts of flimsy excuses to justify its electoral failures in 1994,1999, 2004 and 2009, but the truth should not be lost that Malawians were simply not interested to give power to a bunch of octogenarians that were there during independence in 1964 and made it a point to conduct a campaign of wanton abuse of their human rights for the next 30 years.

But this is not any more as MCP delegates sent Tembo packing and turned to Chakwera during a truly democratic convention in Lilongwe.

And although Chakwera’s ascendancy to the scene is a case of bad news to other political parties as it changes the political DNA with MCP now having a realistic go in its attempt to form the next government, I would have expected PP and DPP to be magnanimous and effusive in their congratulations, thereby hiding any fears that they obviously have.

They have not and instead adopted a typical fighting stance with PP’s Hophmally Makande shamelessly charging that Chakwera is a Tembo stooge and that they are ready for him.

DPP’s Nicholus Dausi, on the other hand, characteristically reminded us of other historical journeymen in collar who did not have any impact on Malawian politics, something that was utterly unnecessary and without context.

This is all pathetic but not surprising from parties that seem to revel in personal attacks and put on the back burner any debate over substantive issues that matter to Malawians.

As for Chakwera, Malawians expect from him solutions to the problems that can change their lives for the better as he rightly promised.

It is the only thing that will differentiate and put him well above the noise gongs that keep on troubling our eardrums in PP and DPP. Being a reverend, Malawians do not expect any foul-mouthed tirades that they are used to these days whenever the likes of Uladi Mussa take to the microphone during the never-ending campaign rallies of President Joyce Banda thinly disguised as development meetings to make the taxpayers pick their tab.

But more importantly, Chakwera must completely repudiate the jinx that has stopped MCP from getting power: It’s dirty past.

And while he is at it, there are no buts or exceptions. Whatever little good thing that MCP did was downed in the sorrow and anguish the party caused for Malawians during its rule and there is no compromise if Chakwera wants to be trusted.

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One Comment

  1. Is UDF trusted with all its dark past? What about DPP and the dark present of PP? There is no clean party in Malawi but at least there is a clean candidate in MCP at the moment.

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