DPP ‘not bothered’ with Kachali’s return to PP: Sanga says KK now political lightweight

Northern Region Democratic Progressive Party governor Kenneth Sanga has brushed off former vice president Khumbo Kachali’s return to People’s Party (PP) leadership role, saying the development will least affect the party’s popularity and membership in the region.

Kachali was last week controversially unveiled as PP interim president in the absence of the party’s founding president Joyce Banda by the region’s provincial chairperson Christopher Mzomera Ngwira.

But the party clarified that it has welcomed Kachali back as its vice president.

Sanga said Kachali was no longer a “political heavy weight.”

Argued Sanga: “Go to Chitipa and find out if people know Kachali. Let me remind you that he [Kachali] almost lost to Nkhata in the last general elections. Does a political heavy weight go through all that?”

The governor said during the last tripartite elections much as Kachali asked people of the North to rally behind Peter Mutharika, the call bore shoddy impact.

“Otherwise we should have registered landslide victory in the region,” he said.

He said Kachali’s return was only going to bring “confusion” into PP.

Political analysts have also faulted Kachali’s move saying it reflects lack of intra-party democracy in the former ruling party.

Political scientist Mustapha Hussein of the University of Malawi (Unima) had described the development in PP as “chaotic.”