Kabwila done with MCP, joining UTM

Salima North West  legislator Jessie Kabwila has said she is now done with Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and is contemplating joining UTM party of State Vice President Saulos Chilima.

The vocal MP said this Friday  in her constituency where she has been holding a consultative meeting with her constituents on her next move following chaotic primary elections  in MCP where the party has picked Enock Phale to be its candidate in the May  21 2019 Tripartite elections.

Clad in MCP regalia, Kabwila met representatives for over 60 areas from Chitala and Lipimbi wards, where chairpersons for areas took turns advising her to dump the party under which she was ushered into a parliamentary position in 2014.

She told constituents at Katitima Primary School: “I wanted to share with you that the MCP president Lazarus Chakwera has rejected me as an aspirant for the constituency. When I logged a complaint, party officials asked me to wait for Chakwera. Yesterday, [on Thursday] he sustained results which are indicating that I lost. Because of that rejection, I want you voters to determine the direction we should take.”

Kabwila, who boycotted the elections, branded the party primary elections process as a sham and an insult to her followers and the MCP.

She said MCP should not take primaries as an exercise to settle vendetta or disagreements.

“The intolerance to dissenting views in the party should be a cause for concern,” said Kabwila.

Kabwila, who is also chairperson of the Parliamentary Women’s Caucus, said she is contemplating joining UTM and contest the elections under its banner.

“The UTM will gain to get me and these voters behind me,” she said.

Observers say  MCP has not yet shed off  the type of politics ipractised during the 31-year-old era of one party dictatorship  where leaders never gave room to dissenting views.

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) of the reputed The Economist magazine, observed that internal wrangles were weakening the opposition parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.