MCP appears favoured by Malawians as next govt but grand alliance of DPP-UDF-PP is too strong
“Your worst enemy could be your best friend and your best friend your worst enemy,” Bob Marley, Who the Cap fit Most.
Just on last week’s subject of potential alliances, just how seriously should we take the rumour mill on some speculated potential 2019 election alliances currently flying around?
‘There is no smoke without fire’, the old saying goes. And when you see, for example, opposition People’s Party (PP) members of Parliament dining and wining at State House, it must tickle curiosity.
Ostensibly bitter rivals, when these folks start voting together, too, DPP in Parliament, then you’ve enough reason to believe such political gossip. Much so when, suddenly, on social media, the DPP and PP propaganda machinery start speaking the same language, too. Or, PP legislators start demanding, openly, freedom guarantees for their self-exiled leader.
The apparent loser, once again, is our version of Grand-Old-Party, MCP. As DPP and PP—plus, boy! United Democratic Front (UDF), appear poised to join forces in 2019, it can only prove too much for MCP.
This is a potential formidable an alliance. But can it work beyond the rumour mill.
Then answer is a resounding yes! Joyce Banda, PP’s run-away leader and former president, desperately needs reprieve from the alleged eminent threat of arrest. She has been criss-crossing western capitals since being ejected from power, but we all know east or west, home is best.
In her absence, PP colleagues have openly been flirting with DPP. She can’t stay away forever. She will come back home. But only under some deal. Either to prop up the opposition, or join ranks with government. The latter now appears more plausible.
What is not clear for now, though, is what will JB, as Banda is fondly called, get apart from that. Will she seek a position in government? Will she, like Bakili Muluzi, also bargain for a seat on the table for her son or just be happy with PP officials getting positions?
As Bob Marley reminds us in the opening quote above, there are no permanent friends and foes in politics. What appeared unfathomable a year ago, now increasingly looks a possibility.
Certainly, Tate—as DPP youths call the State President—has no business clinging to an old vendetta against JB. He is also well capable of burying the hatchet, a classic example is how he has rehabilitated Muluzi despite the former president’s sordid relationship with Bingu wa Mutharika.
Beyond Mutharika, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is an election-obsessed institution with strategists eager to ask Mutharika to do whatever has to be done, as long as it guarantees victory.
So wither grand alliance—wither South, South, South—an alliance that will consolidate the Southern Region as one block. The premise is regionalism while the intention is guaranteeing DPP victory and, avoiding jail time for some, whether they deserve it or not it.
It bodes ill for Malawians in many ways. Beyond the ethnical connotations of politicians galvanising regional and ethic lines, like the dog who caught the car, DPP has made a mess of its current governing mandate.
But give it to DPP, if DPP succeeds in bringing together both UDF and PP to its corner, which is no crime—that is shrewd politics, at least on surface value—it is also an indictment of failure of MCP, as the other alternative centre of power, to bargain and get itself allies.
At the moment, MCP appears favoured by Malawians as the next government—at least according to a respectable pollster and recent vote in the by-elections—but many have also cautioned it can easily be preyed on by twin ghosts of overconfidence and lack of strategic planning.
It’s a mark of hubris and arrogance if MCP thinks it can do it alone. But presence of Sidik Mia and many rallies held jointly with PP officials in recent past shows that the party is learning and not failing for the same old trappings.
Even if MCP makes alliances with UDF and PP, or one of the parties, the price remains that it will also be, to borrow language of one editorial, romancing the devil.
It’s an election winning strategy on paper, too. When UDF and MCP once allied to form a coalition against a then popular Bingu wa Mutharika-led DPP in 2009, the partnership was easily derided by voters as a coalition of thieves and murderers. Voters, sometimes, are not easily amused
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We will get the handouts if given. But all Malawians are tired of the Cashgaters who are even coming into a coalition. How much money will be looted. Malawiians will boot them out collectively
The author of this article is misleading and cheating himself. People are tired with DPP, UDF. So whether they come together it won’t change people’s mind.
Whether the Grand Alliance is there or not I am for MCP. We need new guys. The thieves of the South need to go. They are regionalistic, tribalistic, nepotistic, cronyistic crooked bastards of the South. A Kapirikoni.
With all the problems the country has experienced, we do need change! The UDF,DPP and PP alliance cannot deliver the change the country needs. PERIOD!.
Obviously, UDF was founded on principles of moral bankruptcy ( In 1969 the founding father of UDF was imprisoned for stealing Six Pounds)-FACT. The DPP was followed with similar moral bankruptcy (The UDF split when Muluzi brought in as his successor Bingu wa Mutharika, a relatively poor man who had been working outside the country for years, enjoyed little national following and was wholly dependent on Muluzi’s largesse. He had y been fired as Secretary General of COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) for abuse of office and funds and for being ‘generally arrogant and intolerant of criticism)-KUBA-FACT’. Joice Banda of PP led single handedly the Cash gate SCAM and Selling off of the Air Malawi. The common thread amonst the three parties is BELIEF IN STEALING.
We desperately need CHANGE. That change is obviously not going to be delivered by UDF, PP and DPP ALLIANCE!
WHICH MCP ? SHAME ON YOU IT’S NEXT YEAR
WHICH MCP WILL WIN SHAME ON YOU IT’S NEXT YEAR?
MCP NEEDS STRONG STRATEGY AND STRATEGIST.IT IS FACING EXPERIENCED THIEVES-ATSIZINANTOLE OKWANA IN DPP/UDF/PP.
STOP BEING OVERCONFIDENT
My friend Golden Matoga, I will call you so because I like people who present facts and alarms-that’s solid debate.
Your so-called DPP, UDF and PP grand alliance, in my understanding, is non-existent at least from the angle that views the real electoral paradigm in 2019. The alliance is a fraud much as the performance of the governments under the three parties.
The existence of the three parties is the reason Malawi is tightly bound to the confines of poverty and underdevelopment. Should the country entertain the leadership that promotes regionalism but exhibit mediocrity in governance?
The three parties are family parties with fake and colorful manifestos that understandably are paper cheesecake but not the desired blueprints
of development. DPP, UDF and PP are one family that represents failure, theft, tribalism, regionalism, mediocrity, and dishonest. This is why Cashgate was prevalent under the leadership of UDF and PP and is still prevalent under the leadership of DPP.
Malawians aren’t stupid and for one to think that there is a grand alliance existing amongst DPP, UDF, and UDF as a symbol of electoral success in 2019 is an insult to the people who have endured the hardship under the failed leadership of the three parties.
These three parties are sowing seeds of fragmentation for the country and need to be stopped. However, I have faith in the people of Malawi who can not stoop so low to vote for leaders who have a history of stealing from them. The Muluzi family, Joyce Banda family and Mutharika family are all thieves and will never develop Malawi, and this is why they will fall with their alliance in 2019.Grand Coalition or not , DPP will never win – a dark curtain is already covered on it.
We have notorious thieves in the three parties that care less for the country but enjoy practicing regionalism. Malawians know what to choose and their best chance is 2019. I am not shaken by Mutharika’s paranoidal acts of derailing electoral reforms and assembling parties of thieves together. With or without electoral reforms, DPP will fall.
I’m so sick and tired of all of them, we need a total revamp/complete overhaul of our political fabric! I know somewhere out there there is some brilliant being who can move ths country to greater heights!
DPP-PP-UDF is an alliance of terminally ill and on life support patients. The Country is providing them Home Based Care, therefore do not expect them to win
With or without any alliance MCP is ruling from 2019 and will stay in power for over 20years
Zoona Toka. Oimba adaimba kuti ” Musaope kuchuluka , ndi madeya osaungula. Ena adanena kuti, “Chulukechuluke ngwa njuchi umanena yomwe yakuluma.” If God is for us who can stand against us?
If wishes were horses, amwene! Wagwanayo iwe!
Any intelligent person will be able to see that this is dull Bakili Muluzi regional politics to shield fellow thieves. This will easily be countered by federalism. Let us (the North and Central) delink ourselves from these thieves. They are happy to continue stealing from us. All the 3 parties in their merger are owned by thieves. UDF (Bakili – 1.7 billion), PP (Joyce – Jet batter & DPP – Prince of Thieves).
There will be those very poor apologists who wont even let you see pomwe amagona, pomvetsa chisoni koophya but they are brainwashed. The obvious sell outs will also be there but this just has to be done. Enough is enough. Bloodshed or NOT. Ationjeza.
Zamanyiiii amaliwongo awa anyapapi amenewa they are useless creatures. All they know is nepotism, regionalism, fucking, thuggery and thievery, corruption ndikukoka ma leven.
I do not understand how the writer thinks those people in UDF, DPP and PP are not Malawians. If they come together and vote for DPP do they cease to be Malawians? Any sane Malawian knows that this country has always been tribalistic, and MCP is the architect of this.
The fact is MCP can never win an election in this country without the support of the Llomwes. Instead of fighting Mutharika’s policies, MCP is fighting the Llomwes, this strategy simply galvanizes the Southern Region against the Lilongwe Congress Party, ooops, the Malawi Congress Party. With this flawed strategy MCP will cry the all familiar song “atibera” come 2019.
There are millions of Llomwes who have not personally benefited from DPP and will not benefit if MCP gets to power. Why should they vote for a party that ostracises them?
Good observation……with poor intellectual capacity. UDF, PP and DPP have all failed Malawians big time. People have no trust in them all. They are all thieves. Being in alliance will only put thieves in one side.
MCP may not necessarily require an alliance. Invasion on the south through political heavy weights like Sidik Mia and the newly converted Rev. In North, willbring more votes for MCP than u can imagine.
And when people say that it is God who choose and put our leaders in power which God do they refer to? When evil people do whatever they can do to stay in power including forming selfish alliances like the ones being talked about in this article.
Malawians should stop voting based on regionalism and start electing leaders based on merit, that is the only way to end these so called alliances or marriage of convenience….
MCP will win without any so called alliance. Actually, here in the North, pp, UDF and DPP mean the same thing FAILURE! HOW DO U MAKE ALLIANCE WITH CASHGATERS? MCP IMENYA NORTH, WHOLE CENTRAL ,ALL URBAN AREAS, WHOLE LOWER SHIRE. 2019 KUCHEDWA!
Joyce Banda is such an opportunist, it’s all about her first,
Cherry Blair I told you to stay out of Joyce Banda’s mess. Now she will leave you and all hanging……….what an embarrassment???
This looks really, really bad for Joyce Banda and all those who have sheltered,, supported and defended her while in self-imposed exile. So what does Cherry Blair have to say now? Will she issue an apology to Mutharika after she accused him of issuing a bogus warrant of arrest,