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UDF in secret coalition with DPP

Directed all UDF party members to support government both materially and financially: Muluzi
Directed all UDF party members to support government both materially and financially: Muluzi

United Democratic Front (UDF) president Atupele Muluzi has quietly taken his party into a parliamentary working coalition with the ruling DPP, Weekend Nation can reveal.

When the Budget Session of Parliament was winding up last week and National Assembly Speaker Richard Msowoya announced in the House that the government side was to meet later, Muluzi and UDF parliamentarians made the meeting jointly.

According to sources that attended the meeting, Muluzi, who is Minister of Energy, Mining, Environment and Natural Resources in President Peter Mutharika’s administration,  directed all UDF party members to support government both materially and financially, especially during Tuesday’s by-elections in Blantyre and Thyolo which the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won.

UDF leader in the House Lucius Banda, who also attended the caucus, refused to comment on the matter and asked Weekend Nation to consult the party’s hierarchy.

But party spokesperson Ken Ndanga said the UDF leader in Parliament was the best person to answer as he manages whatever is happening at the National Assembly.

Leader of the House Francis Kasaila confirmed that the two parties have a working relationship both in and outside Parliament.

“It’s true we have been holding caucuses together with the UDF as you know the UDF president is a Cabinet minister in the DPP government,” said Kasaila.

According to Kasaila, the caucuses were meant to discuss relevant issues affecting both parties in Parliament.

Political analyst Henry Chingaipe has described the relationship between UDF and DPP as cozy although, he said, it is not clearly a defined.

“Strictly speaking, the parliamentary and governing parts of UDF and DPP parties are in some kind of an evidently cozy but not clearly defined relationship that, for lack of a better concept to describe it, can be called a ‘governing pact,’ mainly because it involves, almost exclusively, partisan politicians who have elected political posts in the state establishment and the general and ordinary membership of the parties —i.e. those that are not serving in Cabinet or in Parliament appear to be excluded from the arrangement. It is an arrangement between the elected political elites of the parties,” he said

According to Chingaipe, the arrangement is not surprising at all, arguing it was an expected relationship after the UDF president was appointed into Cabinet.

He said this indicated clearly that there was something being worked out between Atupele Muluzi  and Peter Mutharika and, by extension, between UDF and DPP.

Said Chingaipe: “You will recall that President Mutharika’s Cabinet came in parcels, indicating that he was having a somewhat difficult time to choose his ministers. However, the choice of the UDF president was not that difficult, as he came through in the first lot of ministers.”

He, therefore, said the pattern of recent collaboration which has included UDF and DPP members of Parliament holding ‘joint caucuses’ and members making financial contributions to the DPP campaign in the by-elections, shows that the agreement between Peter Mutharika and Atupele Muluzi has slowly but significantly been extended to the political parties and there is now some kind of unity of purpose between the parties flowing from agreements made at a personal level by their political elites.

When he was quizzed about the future of the two parties, Chingaipe said: “It is pretty difficult to do a predictive analysis of Malawian politics. However, it can be said that both Atupele Muluzi and Peter Mutharika are repositioning themselves for the future. This may affect or shape the incentive structures of their parties differently, for good or worse. Only time will tell.”

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2 Comments

  1. Nkhani yinali yatsogolo la mwana wathu Atu. It seems the cards are properly arranged to prepare the young Muluzi

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