After a week of breaking ranks with his brother-in-law who is also the President of the country and ruling DPP, former first lady Callista Mutharika was absent at a private memorial mass the Mutharika family organised to remember her husband, Bingu.
The private ceremony which took place in Thyolo on Sunday, 09 April, was attended by close relations of former President Bingu wa Mutharika. These included his children and brother, Peter, together with his wife, Gertrude.
However, conspicuously missing at the memorial mass was the wife to the former President Callista Mutharika.
It was said that Callista was told by the Mutharika family that they had not planned to have a public ceremony this year in remembrance of Bingu who died in April 2012.
Callista has been in the news lately for taking a swipe at President Mutharika and urging him to step down so that he could pave way for his Vice Saulos Chilima.
In an interview, Callista also said that the route that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has taken is not the one that the founder and her husband Bingu wa Mutharika wanted it to take.
The mass yesterday celebrated the lives of both Bingu and his first wife Ethel.
A Callista ndi a hule awa, amaona ngati peter awatenganganso kuti awakwatire. U first lady amaumva kukoma.