Timothy Mtambo in the last ditch to save his collapsing personality
Leader of the near-defunct Citizens For Transformation (CFT), Timothy Pagonachi Mtambo, has resurrected from political inactivity to challenge the current regime, a move observers call irrelevant and mistimed.
The once hugely popular civil rights leader has today thrown jabs at the Tonse administration at a press briefing held in Lilongwe.
Mtambo rose to fame when he joined nationwide demonstrations calling for resignation of then Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) chairperson, Jane Ansah, who was accused of facilitating the fraudulent 2019 Presidential elections.
The elections were months later nullified by the High Court sitting as a Constitutional Court. The court was of the view that many election guidelines were legally flouted thereby advantaging Peter Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party over other candidates.
“He wants to gain relevance at a time Malawians long forgot about his existence. His dismal performance as Minister of National Unity angered many people who expressed dismay on how someone with sweet talk before the 2020 fresh poll could end up a daft cabinet minister,” said one of our sources.
Malawians argue that since his appointment as cabinet minister, Mtambo seemed clueless on how he wanted to entrench national unity among varying societies.
Save for a few meetings in hotel conference rooms, the ‘clueless’ cabinet minister only concentrated on maintaining his outlook, walking around in his khakhi regalia and a rod in his hand. Beyond that, he rarely engaged in systematic and strategic interactions with key stakeholders in the national unity space.
True to these assertions, his successor Richard Chimwendo Banda has aligned the national unity narrative to the current regime’s development agenda.
Contrary to Mtambo’s lack of strategic focus, the new minister facilitated establishment of the National Unity and Peace Commission whose commissioners were sworn in by President Lazarus Chakwera on December 18, 2023.
Coming from such a non-performing trajectory, Mtambo has become a ridicule of national discourse. Malawians doubt if his noise during the anti-Jane Ansah protests is enough to sustain his relevance on the national political platform.
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