Chihana, Mwenifumbo signal truce after years of Aford leadership rift

Karonga Central MP Frank Mwenifumbo has posted photographs on social media showing him sharing warm, light-hearted moments with the country’s second vice-president, Enock Chihana, in what appears to be a public thawing of relations between the two long-standing political rivals.

The pair had previously fallen out over the leadership of the Alliance for Democracy (Aford), the party founded by Chihana’s late father, the trade unionist and political figure Chakufwa Chihana.

According to Mwenifumbo, the photographs were taken in Mzuzu after the two attended the funeral of Tamala Munthali in Rumphi on Friday.

“When a brother and a brother meet,” he wrote in the caption accompanying the images on his Facebook page, thanking Chihana for hosting him at his residence in the city.

Neither man has disclosed details of what was discussed, but the images have been widely read as a signal that the two have set aside their political differences, at least for now.

Mwenifumbo left Aford to form his own political party after failing in his attempt to unseat Chihana as the party’s leader.

The rift had marked one of the more prominent internal power struggles within Aford in recent years, a party with deep historical roots in Malawi’s transition to multiparty democracy in the early 1990s.