By Nyasatimes
Africa-Press – Malawi. Sometimes a lie repeated becomes the truth; and the truth hidden becomes a lie. DPP followers must look in the mirror and ask: where is the lie?
Let’s talk numbers, not emotions. The DPP’s backbone has always been the Lhomwe belt: Phalombe, Thyolo, and Mulanje. This is home turf—Apapa ndi pa home penipeni. But even at home, the ground is shifting.
In 2019, these three districts registered 732,000 voters (Phalombe 169k, Thyolo 280k, Mulanje 283k). Fast-forward to 2025: registrations have dropped to 703,000 (Phalombe 170k, Thyolo 253k, Mulanje 280k). That’s a loss of 29,000 voters—about 4% fewer in DPP’s stronghold. Meanwhile, nationally, Malawi’s voter roll has grown from 6.8 million in 2019 to 7.16 million in 2025—a gain of 362,000 (5.3%).
Do the math: while the rest of the country is expanding its voter base, the DPP has shrunk. That’s already a 9.3% disadvantage before a single ballot is cast. Where is the lie?
Now, let’s revisit performance. In the 2019 nullified election, Peter Mutharika crushed it in the Lhomwe belt: 90.1% in Phalombe, 90% in Thyolo, 87% in Mulanje. Chakwera? He barely scraped 15,000 votes combined in all three districts.
In the 2020 fresh election, things changed slightly. Thanks to the Tonse Alliance, Chakwera managed about 37,000 votes in the Lhomwe belt—roughly 20,000 more than 2019. But even then, the Tonse government won nationally with 59.3% while still losing badly in DPP’s backyard.
Here’s the catch: today, the DPP starts 2025 already short of 29,000 registered voters in its stronghold. If they repeat the poor 2019 scenario where Chakwera got only 15k, the government still does better than 2020. Simple arithmetic.
Some DPP diehards comfort themselves with the myth that their base suffered low turnout in 2020. Wrong. The facts speak:
National turnout 2020: 64.8%
Turnout in Phalombe: 76%
Mulanje: 69%
The Lhomwe belt actually outperformed the rest of the country. So no, there was no apathy in your base. Again, where is the lie?
But here’s the real storm: 2025 is different. For the first time, DPP’s home yard is divided. Look around:
Dalitso Kabambe (UTM) is from Thyolo.
Kondwani Nankhumwa (PDP) is from Mulanje.
Michael Usi (Odya Zake) is also from Mulanje.
These aren’t strangers. They are sons of the soil. Even if each of them collects 20,000 votes from this base, that’s 60,000 votes gone from DPP—votes that in 2019 and 2020 were guaranteed blue. Can DPP afford that? The answer is no.
At the minimum, DPP has already “lost” 29,000 voters through reduced registration. Add internal splits, add the new faces appealing to Lhomwe pride, and suddenly the so-called impregnable base looks shaky. If turnout dips even slightly, the math gets worse.
The painful truth? DPP cannot enter 2025 elections assuming “tiwina, tiwina” just because of Phalombe, Thyolo, and Mulanje. Those days are gone. Malawi’s politics has changed. Numbers don’t lie—people do.
So again, to every DPP follower clinging to nostalgia: tell us, where is the lie?
Source: Malawi Nyasa Times
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