Chaima Banda enter races for PP’s vice president post
Chris Chaima Banda has entered the race for ruling People’s Party (PP) position of Vice President, at the party’s first ever convention to be held on August 27, 2012 in Blantyre.
Banda’s bid is shaking up an already heated race that is emerging as a contest between Home Affairs Minister Uladi Mussa, Energy Minister and Former State Vice President Cassim Chilumpha and two top PP officials, Clement Stambuli and George Zulu.
The former president of the defunct Mass Movement for Young Generation visited his roots at the heart of Traditional Authority Kabudula’s homestead in Lilongwe on 25th July 2012 to seek their blessings in his quest for continued political growth and maturity in the PP.
During the visit he was accompanied by some members of PP Central Province Committee who drummed his support.
Lilongwe Kasiya’s PP District Chairman, Thomson Gwiremmaso, expressed his pride over Chaima Banda’s wise choice in joining PP. Further to that, he indicated that Chaima Banda’s aspirations for the positions of Veep at the convention and the candidature for the parliamentary seat in 2014 has their full support.
Chaima Banda was quick to pour his praise over the wise and visionary leadership of President Joyce Banda.
He said that he made the decision to join PP from Malawi Congress Party (MCP) -where he led a group of Young Turks that wanted to wrestle power from veteran politician John Tembo- because he fully subscribes to the ideological principles upon which the PP was founded, namely; Unity, Equity and Development.
He further outlined that PP has been developed on the platform of democratic values; “this has been demonstrated by the way it has reached out and touched the lives of the poor even before it came to power.”
This will be the first time since 2003 when a ruling party held a national convention. In 2003, it was the United Democratic Front (UDF) that was in power. The country’s oldest party, the Malawi Congress Party, last held its convention in 2005. Malawi’s next general elections will be held in 2014.
Fact file
Chaima Banda was born in 1964. He comes from Kakopa Village, Traditional Authority Kabudula, Lilongwe District; He has risen from a very humbling beginning, starting school at the age of 11 in 1975.
He now holds a Master of Science Degree in Development Management (specializing in Social Policy Development/ Analysis and Institutional Reform) from the Open University in London, a Bachelor of Social Sciences Degree from the Chancellor College, University of Malawi and a Development Management Post Graduate Diploma from the Open University as well.
Chaima Banda was a Policy Development Specialist in the British Government for ten years (2000- 2010). He has also worked in other high profile positions with a Finnish Child Survival Programme (from Finland) and as a consultant with the United Nations in South Africa.
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