Tug of war: MCP takes Mutharika one on one

Oct 12, 2015 Politics 246
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Malawi24
Jessie Kabwila

Opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) over the weekend told the media it remains on its stand not to apologize to President Peter Mutharika and has since asked the Malawi leader to let the details of his trip to the United Nations General Summit (UNGA) be made public.

Mutharika had told the media on Thursday in his furious looking facial expression that the MCP has been behind the reports that he took along with him a 115 delegates when only six were invited.

Mutharika turned his ire literally on the opposition party’s Spokesperson, Jessie Kabwila demanding her to apologize to the nation for what he termed as ‘lies’, before he also railed at the media.

However, during a press conference on Saturday, Kabwila maintained the party would not apologize to Mutharika and that the only good thing he (Mutharika) could do now is to tell Malawians the truth of the matter and not threaten anyone else.

Jessie Kabwila
Kabwila says Mutharika needs no apology.

“We will never apologise to the President in fact he is the one who should apologise for the pain inflicted on Malawians by spending millions of Kwachas for this year UN meeting and yet hospitals have no scanners,” Kabwiila said

Kabwira said it is unfortunate that Mutharika decided to hire expensive jet at the expense of ordinary Malawians who are suffering with growing poverty.

The MCP publicist also accused President Mutharika for shouting to the media.

“It is unfortunate that Mutharika singled out one radio station, this is very bad, media is the fourth estate we need to respect the media,” she said.

Kabwira also took a swipe at the Malawi President for his remarks that he is already a millionaire and that he funded the campaign from his personal pocket.

MCP has since given a five day ultimatum to Malawi government to release the list of the people who went to UNGA.

The party has also made a fresh call to Mutharika to step down asked by revealing that the country is broke.

Initially, Lilongwe based Political Analyst Loudon Malingamoyo Phiri concurred with Kabwila.

Phiri in an interview with Malawi24 that Mutharika’s remark is a clear indication that what he did is wrong.

According to Phiri, criticizing the opposition and the media is a sign of fear and intimidation which aims at paving out some of the issues.

Government maintains MCP is behind the talk out of what it terms as ‘malice’ and has still wants to be apologized.