Wa Jeffrey puts  a political spin on regionalism : ‘Only a DPP member from North can be President of Malawi’

The Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) secretary general Greselder Jeffrey wa Jeffrey has put a political spin to her careless remarks that that the north like the center will never rule the country, saying the regions can produce a President only if is a member of DPP.

Speaking  on Saturday told a mass rally at Mbwatalika in the area of Traditional Authority Malili in Lilongwe, Wa Jeffrey refused to dissociate herself with the remarks she made last week that  that a Malawian from the Northern Region of Malawi can never become President of Malawi.

But she had to put a political spin in what critics say  she was airing out her party’s political quota policy and truth.

“North and Centre can produce a president but he or she will be from our party DPP,” said Wa Jeffrey.

Commentators argue that former president Bakili Muluzi said the same to justify why he had bypassed all his senior colleagues in the United Democratic Front (UDF) on his succession and settled for Bingu wa Mutharika as presidential candidate.

Now UDF is in political union with DPP. According to UDF-DPP unwritten policy only the Southern Region can and should produce a Malawi president.

And newspaper columnist Lezi Zeleza Manda had a satire on the matter.

“Northerners should actually blame themselves for undermining themselves politically and being overzealous. It was Ziliro Chibambo, a senior northern politician, who first declared that the North would never produce a president until Jesus, the Christ came back. Northerners did not cry foul then. Then, it was King M’mbelwa who declared Mutharika (ka)Ngwazi but the Northerners never condemned him.  Some people say that it was also northerners that declared Kamuzu Banda life president of the Malawi Congress Party,” he wrote in Weekend Nation.

He pointed out that the DPP secretary general was  just repeating her party’s policy, that’s why she did not get censured by her party.