Africa-Press – Malawi. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) vice president for the Southern Region, who is also Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Kondwani Nankhumwa, says he is not going anywhere despite facing resistance within the party.
Nankhumwa was speaking at a rally he addressed at Nyambadwe School Ground in Blantyre Sunday. “I was told that the party’s president Peter Mutharika was not happy with what I was doing saying it appeared as though the party had two presidents but I later found out it was all a lie.
“They have been accusing me of joining UTM or MCP [Malawi Congress Party] but, surprisingly, it was them who started UTM and it is them who have joined MCP,” he said.
Nankhumwa said Mutharika already made his position known that he would not contest at the 2025 presidential election and that suggestions that he should are coming in because the other preferred candidates know that they cannot beat him at the convention.
“That is why I am saying that whether the convention takes place in the ocean or on a mountain, regardless of who will compete with me at the convention, I will contest and win.
“You are removing people from their positions and replacing them with your preferred people. I know you are planning to have bouncers block me from contesting but I will contest and win,” he said.
Speaking earlier, DPP Secretary General Grezelder Jeffrey said only the party’s members who participated in the 2018 convention will take part in the upcoming elective convention.
Reacting to Nankhumwa’s claims that some people have been blocking his operations as DPP vice president for the Southern Region, Mutharika’s spokesperson, Shadric Namalomba, said that was news to him.
Namalomba still called on Nankhumwa to use the party’s laid-down procedures and structures to raise his concerns. “Instead of complaining at a rally, he should have raised those concerns with the party internally. It is immature for him to go and complain in public without raising them within the party,” he said.
Political commentator Victor Chipofya said in a separate interview Sunday that the party must look at what its constitution says and all its members including Nankhumwa should be allowed to compete for the party’s presidency at a free and fair convention.
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