I’m flashing red card to Mutharika, says Chakwera: ‘MCP to build Malawi’

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera has promised a massive ‘Red Card’ campaign against President Peter Mutharika, accusing him and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for failure to keep its manifesto promise.

“I have come to flash a red card to Mutharika,” said Chakwera in a brief speech at Masintha Ground in Kawale, Lilongwe on Saturday during a political rally after launching the party’s 2019-2024 manifesto.

The rally was disrupted by rains and Chakwera speech was cut short.

Nyasa Times understands that MCP will be distributing red cards – the symbol of Chakwera’s campaign – so that supporters should show their red cards on Fridays, to display their displeasure with the DPP-led government.

It is a symbol borrowed from football when players are shown a red card when they are dismissed from the game.

Mutharika and Chakwera have emerged as bitter rivals since the May 20 2014 Tripartite Elections in which Chakwera trailed Mutharika in the presidential race.

Chakwera earlier launched the manifesto at Crossroads Hotel in Lilongwe, highlighting five critical areas that will propel economic growth and development if it is ushered into power in the May 21 2019 Tripartite Elections.

In the manifesto, Chakwera says the May 21 2019 watershed elections place Malawians in the “valley of decision.”

He stated: “There is no doubt that despite our diversity, we are all united by the desire to make Malawi a better home for ourselves and generations to come. It is against this backdrop that I would like to assure you that the MCP, under my leadership, is painfully aware of the damage done to state institutions over the last two decades, effectively rendering them incapable of delivering the transformation you long for.

“It is in response to this crisis of governance and the suffering it perpetuates that I and the MCP now stand ready to deliver national transformation on the foundation of a capable democratic developmental state,” states Chakwera.

In the manifesto launched, MCP has singled out economic management and development, agriculture development and food security, energy access and security, trade, commerce and industrial development, mining and resource governance and tourism to achieve this feat.

Reads the manifesto in part: “The MCP believes that Malawi’s fortunes can dramatically within the framework of the capable democratic developmental state. In line with the World Bank’s diagnosis, Malawi requires growth levels not less than six percent per annum for at least over a decade to graduate from a low to middle-income country.”

On the macro-economic policy environment, MCP’s position is that Malawi cannot achieve fundamental structural transformation and sustainable development without a strategic long-term vision to guide the achievement and sustenance of a stable macro-economic policy environment.

MCP says it will also pay particular attention to public debt and aid management to ensure sustainable economic growth and development.

The oldest party also says it will revive the performance of parastatal organisations by limiting political interference and recruiting chief executive officers on a merit and holding them accountable for their decisions in the management of their respective enterprises.

MCP also pledges it will undertake broad-based tax reforms designed to expand the tax base by increase tax compliance and lower the tax burden on individuals, businesses and all taxpaying entities, revise the zero-rated Pay As You Earn tax from K35 000 to K100 000 to spur productivity and investment.

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