Lawmaker Ngwira claims DPP still Malawi’s ruling party
Newly-appointed DPP Regional Governor for the North, Reverend Christopher Ngwira MP, says President Joyce Banda’s People’s Party (PP) should be aware that DPP is still a party in power.
But PP has since dismissed Ngwira’s claims as mere academic conjecture, according to the Thursday’s edition of The Nation.
Addressing a regional committee meeting in Mzuzu on Wednesday, Ngwira said Banda, who assumed the presidency after the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika last month, owes her rise to DPP.
“Joyce Banda is President because of DPP. We are still a government, which is different from the party,” said Ngwira.
He claimed Banda pledged to work with the DPP when she took over the presidency, but she went ahead to appoint a cabinet without consulting the DPP leadership.
“After her inauguration, four members from the party went to see her and even at some point Professor Peter Mutharika left the funeral to meet her. We asked that there be a 50-50 cabinet. While we were waiting for her consultations, a cabinet was appointed without even consulting the party’s leadership,” claimed Ngwira.
He also alleged that the people that misguided the late President and tarnished the image of the party were the first to defect to the PP even before Mutharika was buried.
PP’s spokesperson, Stephen Mwenye, however, said the DPP Regional Governor should stop being theoretical.
“Theoretically, DPP can claim to be in power but practically it is the PP that is ruling the country. This is the same scenario, which was there when the DPP was formed from UDF. Theoretically, UDF was in power but practically, it was the DPP (which was ruling)”, Mwenye is quoted as explaining.
On why PP received people that championed the expulsion of Banda and her deputy, Khumbo Kachali, the party spokesman said the current administration does not believe in politics of vengeance.
Ngwira, who was Deputy Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, replaced Frank Mwenifumbo as the party’s boss in the region. Mwenifumbo has since defected to the PP.
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