Op-Ed: Politics is not linear, of Levy and Nsundwe ‘barracks’

The Nsundwe MCP youths and the UTM top official were part of the large crowds that gathered at Masintha Ground on Saturday.

Here, the DPP-UDF alliance delivered an emphatic message: We are reclaiming our victory. We are demolishing MCP in Central Region.

MCP can wear a brave face and conveniently dismiss the defections and the crowd at Masintha when President Peter Mutharika’s running mate Atupele Muluzi addressed a rally there. They can propogandize what they saw.

But deep down, they should be feeling the impact of that political brutality. On Saturday, they suffered rough blows where it pains most.

For one year, the so-called Nsundwe Barracks has been Lazarus Chakwera’s galvanizing force.

He has relied on youths from Nsundwe to mobilize and to terrorize.

His agents in HRDC have relied on Nsundwe to cause havoc.

Chakwera and HRDC have organized rallies at Nsundwe specifically to thank the youths there for whipping up political loyalty in the region for MCP by causing terror.

That barracks has fallen. And it has not only fallen. It has defected to DPP.  MCP has lost a rallying machinery.

Its alliance with UTM is not sticking either. With UTM in its stable, MCP thought they have made Central region, its traditional stronghold, an impregnable fortress considering that this is where Saulos Chilima got most of his one million votes in the May 2019 election.

On Saturday, political brutality struck as UTM Deputy Secretary General Levy Luwemba quit UTM.  And  joined DPP.

His seniority and his reason for quitting UTM should worry MCP.

In his position he was the spine of the UTM who would benefit MCP in mobilizing UTM supporters to support the alliance.

Now he has walked away. When a person like him walks away, they do not walk away alone. They walk away with structures. They walk away with figures.

Secondly, Luwemba said he has quit UTM because the party has been swallowed by MCP.

In every way, he is the spirit of the opinion in UTM that the party is not in an alliance with MCP. It is Chilima who has joined MCP – although Chilima himself is fidgeting daily about his association with MCP.

Even worse is that defection of UTM’s Deputy Secretary General could as well be foretelling even more high profile defections from UTM.

Essentially, MCP is effectively on its own. There are no UTM numbers to count on. There is only a tantrum-throwing Chilima vote to hope for.

This exposes the vanity of MCP’s arithmetic that Chakwera’s votes plus Chilima’s votes equals Chakwera’s victory in the fresh elections.

That was very poor arithmetic. Politics is not linear. Voters have their own mind. Their mind cannot be compartmentalised by self-interest or wants of politicians.

And Malawians are maturing in democracy such that political demagoguery is no longer an instrument to count on winning them over.

The truth of the matter is that in Central Region, MCP is imploding. And the history of elections in Malawi is that MCP can never get significant votes from any other region in this country.

But the definitive trouble for MCP is that UDF has risen on its feet, while UTM is disintegrating.

The definitive trouble is that Atupele is charming Malawians while Chilima is disenchanting Malawi.

The future is very bleak for Lazarus Chakwera and MCP.

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