UDF to contest 2019 elections, set for convention

The United Democratic Front (UDF)  has announced plans to hold a national convention to prepare for the next year’s Tripartite Elections, saying its parliamentary alliance will the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will not affect it.

UDF spokesman Ken Ndanga said the party remains intact and will go ahead with plans to contest next year’s elections.

He said the one-time governing party is planning to hold a convention the first quarter of this year.

“It is a constitutional mandate for us to hold a convention,” he said.

Ndanga said the party is yet to select a committee that will manage their indaba.

“The committee that will be set up will be responsible for, among other things, setting up dates for the convention, place as well as organising nomination papers,” said Ndanga.

Asked to explain the future of his party’s working relationship with the governing DPP, Ndanga said the party’s convention could decide the direction.

UDF’s leader Atupele Muluzi is part of the DPP government, as he is serving as Minister of Health and Population Services in President Peter Mutharika’s Cabinet.

UDF and DPP became political bedfellows soon after the May 20 2014 Tripartite Elections after Mutharika drafted Muluzi into his first Cabinet. Muluzi has been maintained since then.

Muluzi has disputed suggestions that by entering into a working relationship with the DPP, he sold the party; arguing he accepted to help run the country because he wanted unity and development.

The youthful Muluzi, whose father Bakili Muluzi, ruled the country between 1994 and 2004, said UDF was strong and he could not sell it any at cost.

Prior to the May 20 2014 Tripartite Elections, Muluzi had also taken UDF into a working relationship with People’s Party (PP) after then president Joyce Banda appointed him and several UDF legislators into Cabinet in 2012.

Muluzi quit Banda’s Cabinet close to the election and launched what he called an ‘Agenda for Change’ that sought to transform the country. However, he finished a distant fourth in the presidential race.