Khumbo presents MOU to MCP, rejected
Vice President Khumbo Kachali, still bitter after being ditched by President Joyce Banda, has presented a memorandum of understanding ( MOU) to the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) to guarantee the votes he will bring to the table from the northern region, party insiders revealed to Nyasa Times.
Since President Banda abandoned Kachali and announced Sosten Gwengwe as running mate for next month’s elections, the want-away vice presidentl has been busy canvassing for support from the chiefs in the northern region and the clergy from Livingstonia Synod.
He has also been giving financial support to parliamentary candidates in the MCP and independents in efforts to build political clout that he has lost in recent months.
Senior members in the MCP confirmed that Kachali is pursuading Dean Lungu, former chairman of Press Corporation and a respected northerner, to push the party into accepting him.
Lungu is the one who brokered the Northern region deal to get Richard Msowoya on the Chakwera ticket.
But this time around many members of the party politburo have not accepted the MOU and are demanding that Kachali joins the party in Mzimba, in his village just like anyone else.
“The MOU has flatly been rejected because of two reasons; one it undermined our running mate Richard Msowoya and secondly Khumbo himself no longer holds any political clout since Joyce Banda dumped him,” said a member of the MCP national executive committee.
According to party insiders, many feel that Khumbo is a liability and would bring a lot of disrepute to the MCP.
“We know that he [Khumbo] is embroiled into many murky deals and he is therefore trying to seek protection because he believes MCP will win the election,” said the NEC member who demanded anonymity.
In the MOU, Khumbo wants MCP to agree that he will get an unnamed senior position in exchange for the northern region vote he will guarantee.
He is also demanding the MCP abolishes the qouta system of education and that the region be given much attention on the development agenda.
But according to further investigations, party President Lazarous Chakwera, wants Kachali to help the party financially and get the northern region vote.
Nyasa Times can reveal that Chakwera has some support within the party just like he had when he accepted another hopeful Sidik Mia who had pledged K500 million in support.
Mia resigned from Joyce Banda’s cabinet in the hope that MCP was going to hand him the running-mate position. It never happened.
This, insiders say, is likely to happen to Kachali.
Kachali could not immediately comment.
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