PP endorses Joyce Banda for 2019 Malawi presidential bid

People’s Party (PP) supporters have said they will not wait for convention to decide on its torchbearer in the 2019 elections as they have endorsed incumbent Joyce Banda, the former Head of State between 2012 to 2014.

Banda returned to Malawi last month  after four years of self-imposed exile, immediately hinting that she might make another run for the presidency next year.

PP National Director for Youth, Ipyana Nthakomwa told media in Karonga on Monday that majority of Malawians want Banda  to contest during the forthcoming elections and help  rebuild the country from the mess created by  Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) .

“Malawians are placing their trust in Joyce Banda back because she was the only leader who dealt with persistent blackouts, fuel crisis, she empowered women, the youths among others.

“We have clean Peoples Party. All those corrupted minds fled to other parties with assets of PP like cars and others. This is the reason the people would like to see Joyce Banda contesting during 2019 polls to restore the lost glory,” Nthakomwa.

He said many people want Banda return to presidency because the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration has “miserably failed” to deliver on its socio-economic promises to Malawians contrary to President Peter Mutharika’s claims.

PP youth leader charged that Mutharika lied in promising that he would fight corruption, improve living standards, transform the economy, provide good governance and ensure equity and equality, saying Banda will deliver economic transformation to the action.

The parliamentary leader  Ralph Mhone is on recird describing DPP as a failed entity with broken promises and full of lies as there is nothing much to show development-wise.

He said the government’s failure to fight corruption is evidenced by 72 files lying at the funding-starved crime-busting Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) offices without action, saying youth unemployment had escalated for lack of strategic projects.

On the rule of law, he gave the DPP government low marks, saying it has turned out to be the one that flouts the country’s laws and only applies the laws whenever they suit them by not respecting a constitutional separation of powers in governance.

Some  observers fear Presudent Mutharika will thwart Banda’s presidential  ambition by disqualifying her through those criminal charges and that the safest route will be to maintain the existing secret  “amnesty” from prosecution on Cashgate cases by not being antagonistic to the regime and back it in 2019 polls.

Mutharika’s government issued an arrest warrant for Banda last July for alleged complicity in the so-called Cashgate scandal during her brief tenure as president.

Public servants siphoned off billions of kwacha of state funds, some of it by hacking into government computers to create false supply contracts. The state was defrauded of around US$32 million in total, almost 1% of Malawi’s annual GDP, in just six months, according to an independent outside audit.

Banda has always claimed that Cashgate took off under the presidency of her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika – brother of the current incumbent – and that she had nothing to do with it. Most observers believe her but acknowledge that the state looting probably accelerated on her watch.

 Malawi’s first female president made it clear though that she felt Malawi badly needed change. She also insisted she wasn’t afraid of being arrested on the Cashgate corruption charges.

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