Chief whip’s ‘Black Box’ jibe at Kunkuyu triggers chaos as Speaker halts Parliament
This is the extraordinary moment Malawi’s parliament descended into uproar after a government minister branded an opposition MP “Black Box” — sparking a furious backlash that brought the House to a standstill.
Chief whip Patricia Wiskes was on her feet trying to make herself heard over jeers from the opposition benches on Wednesday afternoon when she turned on Malawi Congress Party MP Moses Kunkuyu, pointing directly at him.
“Black box, keep quiet,” she snapped — a jibe guaranteed to wound.
The comment landed like a grenade. MCP MPs leapt up in protest, furious at what they saw as a cruel taunt over one of Malawi’s darkest tragedies. Government benches surged back in response, with Democratic Progressive Party members squaring up to their opposition rivals.
Wading into the fray was minister Mary Navicha, who let rip at the MCP, branding them “a party of darkness.”
With the clock ticking towards 5pm and the House descending into chaos, Speaker Sameer Suleman threw in the towel — adjourning proceedings rather than let tempers boil over any further.
So why ‘Black Box’? The cruel jibe rooted in tragedy
The nickname is no accident. It’s a dark reference to Kunkuyu’s own words back in June 2024 — words that would come back to haunt him.
As minister of information at the time, Kunkuyu told journalists that a “black box” would be central to investigations into the horror plane crash that killed vice-president Saulos Chilima and eight others on June 10, 2024.
His comments gave the impression a black box had already been recovered from the wreckage — and that answers were on the way.
But it later emerged there was NO black box at all. Investigators were left without the crucial cockpit recordings and flight data that could have pieced together the aircraft’s final, fatal moments.
The crash claimed the lives of Chilima, former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, Lukas Kapheni, Chisomo Chimaneni, Dan Kanyemba and Abdul Lapukeni. The Malawi Defence Force flight crew — Colonel Sambalopa, Major Flora Selemani and Major Aidin — also perished.
A commission of inquiry set up under former president Lazarus Chakwera ruled out foul play, instead blaming bad weather and human error. A separate technical report by Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, released in June 2025, backed up the human error finding.
But the saga is far from over. President Peter Mutharika ordered a fresh probe earlier this year after Justice Minister Charles Mhango flagged troubling gaps in the earlier investigations — and Malawians are now bracing themselves for answers that could finally tell a different story.
