DPP ‘has lost its soul’, system plunders to sponsor its survival – Columnist

The governing  Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has lost its soul as it has been captured in politics of greed and no longer people-centred, an influential newspaper columnist has said.

Columnist and blogger Golden Matonga stated in a column published in the Nation on Sunday  stated that DPP  is ruling the country arrogantly—with little regard to the aspirations of the people, or the political temperature of the day.

He argues that President Peter Mutharika is so distant to his illustrious late brother and party patriarch Bingu wa Mutharika as he espouses no clear vision for the benefit of the nation.

“APM [Peter Mutharika] doesn’t jail or kill opponents at the rate some of his murderous peers, but being democratic and tolerant is the least of the wishes of the citizenry at the moment,” he states.

The columnist pointed out that Malawians are more perplexed by the troubling levels of poverty and under development at home.

“ It’s the single most charge many a Malawian today will raise against their government—failure to turn around the economic fortunes of the country and the people. But that quest long stopped being the pre-occupation of the DPP government. The DPP has become a financial vehicle for its leaders’ self-enrichment. When its supporters proudly call the DPP a system—flaunting its ability to organise itself around a survival strategy, they are unconsciously referring to a cronyism. That system only serves the few in the system and their dependents,” reads the column in part.

He states that the DPP system plunders the State to sponsor its survival.

“That system stopped caring more about the plight of the people. That system is, as a consequence, hated by the majority of the people. That system promotes tribalism because once Malawians are blinded power, it calculates that it can survive on the principle that because it acts in a way that makes it appear to have a strong base in one region, it will always win elections or manipulate them in its favour.

“That system is the DPP today. It has levers of power, but using it wrongly.”

The columnist state that DPP  as  time and time again resorted to the bad, instead of good.

“So, when opponents match in protest, like they did this week, instead of genuinely seeking solutions to the ongoing crisis, it sends its hoodlums to the street to hack them with pangas. It uses State media to wage disinformation and propaganda against citizens who challenge the party.

“So, DPP is a party that lost its soul. A party that most Malawians can happily say I once voted for this party, prayed for the good health of its president and hoped for a better Malawi because of its policies. But like when its arrogance and self-destructiveness chased donors away; or led to fuel and forex scarcity, DPP is a party that needs self-introspection: What are we doing wrong? How do we regain the trust of Malawians?

“Sending thugs to the streets or having a President who ignores a smoldering crisis for months, is not one way of undertaking the task the DPP needs to for it to regain its own destiny or the country’s,” the column stated.