CCAP Synod calls for political cooperation
They’ve spent years tearing lumps out of each other on the campaign trail – but today Malawi’s fiercest political enemies called an unlikely ceasefire, sitting shoulder to shoulder as the CCAP Synod of Livingstonia delivered a blunt message: stop the infighting and start serving the people.
At the church’s flagship gathering at Kamuzu Academy, Synod General Secretary Reverend William Tembo didn’t mince his words, declaring that genuine cooperation between Malawi’s warring political factions was the only way ordinary citizens would ever be properly served – a pointed dig at a political class more famous for feuding than for finding common ground.
UTM president Dalitso Kabambe was among those who turned up, saying that the church had a duty to drag rival politicians to the same table.
Ironically, Kabambe used the occasion to insist that politics and religion must remain strictly separate – even as he sat in a pew alongside men he has clashed with for years.
But it was the presence of former President and MCP leader Lazarus Chakwera, alongside former Vice President Khumbo Kachali, that really raised eyebrows – two men more accustomed to trading political blows than sharing a bench, suddenly finding themselves worshipping side by side.
The extraordinary scenes come as patience wears thin with Malawi’s fractured political landscape, where rival camps rarely agree on anything, let alone share a room voluntarily.
Increasingly, it is the church – not parliament – stepping in to force old enemies into the same space.
Whether today’s uneasy truce survives beyond the church doors is anyone’s guess. But for one remarkable afternoon, Malawi’s political battlefield fell silent.
