As storm calms at last, can DPP bounce back in 2025?
In the article, freelancer EPHRAIM NYONDO argues that, after two years of internal squabbles, DPP has finally arrived at that political momentum they jealously need to guard and exploit if their resolve to win 2025 is pragmatic.
Make no mistake, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is still one of the dynamic political parties in the country, strong and unshaken at its base, ruthlessly aggressive in its campaign style and, with all intents and purposes, always with its eyes fixed on the prize.
It still has a handsome representation in parliament, it controls the office of the leader of the opposition and, in case you have forgotten, it still has, at its disposal, some of the finest minds in key strategist fields such as law, history, economics and politics.
You must be Mr. Caliban, yes that fool in William Shakespeare’s Tempest, to believe DPP is a used condom.
Of course, the past two years haven’t been all kisses for the party. In these two years, the party Bingu wa Mutharika founded in 2006 has been wrought with a series of intra-party squabbles that, to a political scholar like me, drove me to the theory of chaos.
Politics, the theory says, isn’t linear. Its chaotic, disorderly and, most painfully, zig-zag. Being chaotic, the theory adds, doesn’t mean destruction: chaos helps to clean a system and at the edge of chaos, systems become sharper and stronger.
Could this be true with DPP?
Truth be told, just as that fallen Ralph Tenthani used to write, DPP is a Mutharika thing and at the Mutharikas end, with APM old and tired, the new chapter was always going to be a jostle.
And it did.
As already said, DPP boasts of some of the finest minds to envy. You wouldn’t look down on accomplished stalwarts such as Bright Msaka, Dr George Chaponda, Ben Phiri, Dalitso Kabambe, Joseph Mwanamveka, Jean Kalilani and, of course, Kondwani Nankhumwa. You can’t lift these names on a coffee-spoon. They have accomplished immensely in their own right and they all have what it takes to lead DPP after Mutharika.
So, when daggers were drawn, we knew the political blood that would result. But what we didn’t knew was that it would soar to the apex of waking up a retired professor to dust off his old books and declare to lead the party. That was a pretty shocker.
I am dead certain, with caution of course, APM’s return is more to unite the party than, really, to lead it next year. Well, we shall see.
Be that may, the chaos has come down, the chickens have come to roost and it is evident that the party is now united, loosely though, under APM. That is a plus one.
However, the next step will be critical. The convention will give birth to either of these three: APM, APM handpick or, well, Nankhumwa. Though as it stands, unfortunately, there appears a tacit agreement in the party that, come 2025, APM will be on the ballot. Or, let me assume, APM’s handpick will lead it.
The future of DPP, I must underline, lies in how they will manage the convention and its aftermath. Ambitious achievers such as Nankhumwa have invested a lot in rising to leading the party and, on several occasions, he has never been shy to express it. He has a following that is as loyal to him as those loyal to APM, make no mistake.
That is why DPP, especially APM, has to stand wiser in how they manage this disciplinary thing because it stinks every potential to divide than unite. Secondly, if they stand wiser on the disciplinary, they have to remain there so that they run a convention that doesn’t seen to make a fool some. If they don’t, I shudder to think of the divisions that will emerge.
Let’s not take this rightly. Nankhumwa is no small boy anymore in the Lhomwe belt, the belt we all know is the rock and base for DPP. For DPP to win, it needs two things: One, to keep its base intact; and two, to lobby a briefcase party or two just to complement its base—even in the face of run off.
If Nankhumwa feels fooled, he can leave and, as we know, the king doesn’t go alone. That will shake the Lhomwe belt as it will not be intact and, lo and behold, that doesn’t sound like a political gospel.
As a final word, DPP has 2025 to lose if it chooses to miss the great momentum of order it has won from the two years of necessary chaos. If not, Honourable Enoch Chakufwa Chihana will be the next, oh no, the first president of the Republic of Malawi from the minority region.
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