The marriage between the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the United Transformation Movement (UTM) has ended on July 12, 2024, if what Felix Njawala, a publicity secretary of UTM said is anything to go by. What does this mean in terms of the political future of UTM, barely a month since its leader, Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima, tragically died along with eight others in Chikangawa Forest in Mzimba? Is it the end of the party?
One is persuaded to think deeply that this is the end. What UTM, as a party, has done is dig its own grave. It showed, even before SKC (as the Veep was popularly known) was buried, that all was not well, as fights emerged among the rank and file of the UTM party.
First, there was a rumor that Dr. Michael Biziwick Usi, now the Vice President, had been fired from the party. A rumor which proved not to be true. The death of its founder left the party in disarray. It was kept together because of him. Without him, the party is clueless on how to move forward towards the forthcoming 2025 general elections.
The remaining rank and file expected that President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera would invite them and appoint some of them into cabinet positions, and that some of them would be given positions in the government. They saw nothing coming their way. So what do they do? They decide to end their marriage with MCP.
President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera, in fact, is the chief mourner and is unfairly blamed for the death of SKC and eight others.
The UTM, led BY Secretary General Patricia Kaliati, who was fired from the cabinet, is up in arms against Chakwera and MCP for no valid reason, at all. Kaliati is a frustrated woman who has been a cabinet minister since the dawn of multiparty democracy, and she thinks it’s her birthright to be a cabinet minister.
Where does this leave its current leader, Dr. Usi? In fact, Dr. Usi is the de facto leader of UTM by being the deputy to SKC. He was trusted by SKC to be his runningmate in the 2019 elections and remained his deputy until the time of his death. Dr. Usi has been left with eggs all over his face. One clearly sees that he is not party to the end of the marriage. He is, in fact, the country’s number 2 citizen.
But the party that he rode on to become the country’s number 2 citizen has dumped the marriage. He is as frustrated as UTM itself but for a different reason. His position, I must say, was dependent on him being in UTM. What happens now? Let’s wait and see. What happens in other mature democracies is that a government that was formed by an alliance of several parties, and one of the parties has dumped the alliance, means that there is no government and there is supposed to be an early election. Will this happen in Malawi? Obviously not because UTM was just one of the 7 alliance members and the majority remain resolute to see be alliance work, Aisenhower Mkaka, MCP CEO once said. But for UTM, they closed own grave.
