DPP’s Nankhumwa rallies behind Bokosi in Phalombe North, by-elections: Advises against voting for ‘laboratory’ govt

Leader of the Opposition in Parliament who is also Democratic DPP Vice President for the Southern Region, Kondwani Nankhumwa, has said DPP will throw its support behind Mabvuto Bokosi, an independent candidate in the Phalombe North constituency parliamentary by-election slated to take place on December 15, 2020.

Nankhumwa was speaking on Sunday, December 6, 2020, when he addressed a garage meeting of party leaders at Khongoloni Community Day Secondary School in the area of Chief Jenala in the constituency.

He said Bokosi is a known DPP member and has been a member of the party for a long time, which makes him a natural choice to represent the interests of DPP in the constituency following the retirement of former Member of Parliament for the area, Anna Kachikho.

The DPP Vice President explained to members the dynamics of this by-election and why Bokosi is standing as an independent candidate despite being DPP.

“Mabvuto Bokosi is a DPP candidate who contested against Anna Kachikho in 2009 as an independent candidate after losing the primaries. Following the retirement of Anna Kachikho, we set out to conduct primaries in order to identify a candidate to replace Kachikho and represent DPP in this by-election and Mabvuto Bokosi won by 1000 plus votes against his competitor’s 600 plus votes.

However, DPP is finding itself without a candidate because the recent court ruling said candidates should maintain the tickets on which they stood in the 2019 parliamentary election. Now, Bokosi initially stood as an independent candidate, which is why he has reverted to his former status but he is DPP” explained Nankhumwa.

Nankhumwa added that people of Phalombe North Constituency have every reason to vote for Bokosi because Phalombe is one of the districts that enjoyed massive development under DPP and President Arthur Peter Mutharika.

“Today, Phalombe has some of the best tarred roads; a modern hospital and technical college, and we also have a lot of fresh water boreholes in this constituency,” said Nankhumwa, adding that he will devote his personal time and resources to ensure that Bokosi emerges victorious in this by-election.

Nankhumwa praised former president Peter Mutharika for his focus and for developing Phalombe district beyond recognition.

He said the people of Phalombe must support Bokosi because he is the only one who can ably sustain the development that Kachikho and Mutharika started in the areas of health and infrastructure.

The Mulanje Central parliamentarian added that the people must not waste time with the MCP government because it is a ‘laboratory’ government, which has no plans to develop the district.

Added Nankhumwa: “As you have already seen, the MCP government has no plans to develop the southern region. All government offices and headquarters of key government agencies have been transferred to the central region because they want to kill the southern region as business hub whereas APM used to distribute development equally.

In fact, the Central Region, particularly Lilongwe, received a lot of top-of-the-class development than any other region in the country under Mutharika and DPP.”

He said President Chakwera and MCP on the other hand have their priorities upside down as underlined by government stubbornness and fixation on its decision to waste resources build houses for MPs in all the 193 constituencies across the country when there are more deserving priorities.

These priorities include buying medicine in hospitals and construction of houses for teachers. He added that the alliance has simply failed on its manifesto and looking at what is happening now, the next five years will be a disaster.

There were over 700 area, constituency and district committee members that attended the interactive meeting including over 35 traditional chiefs who pledged to mobilize their subjects to vote for Bokosi on December 15.

Phalombe North is one of several constituencies where there are by-elections on December15. 2020.

The seat fell vacant following a court judgement that nullified the election of Anna Kachikho of DPP in 2019. Kachikho retired from active politics following the annulment, especially because of ill-health and old age.

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