With few days to go before the May 21 tripartite elections, Karonga pastors, fraternal (KPF) on Saturday organized interdenominational prayers at Mlare CCAP church aimed at praying for peaceful campaign and unity before and after elections in Karonga district.
The prayers were conducted under the theme ‘Peace and Unity’.
Reverend Isaac Singini drew his sermon from Matthews 20 from verse 20 to 27 where Jesus Christ brought together his disciples and taught them about servant leadership, saying politicians should emulate from this example if they are to be great leaders after being elected on May 21.
“Jesus brought his disciples together when there were differences amongst them for the sake of peace. We want our leaders to borrow a leaf from this and be humble before their electorates starting from this campaign period. They should not spoil the youths with beer but rather bring developments that villagers need, don’t be selfish,” Singini said in his sermon.
The Pastor further said it is everyone’s role to take care of the situation after results are announced to avoid post-election violence, saying at every competition, there is always one winner hence losers should also concede defeat and help winners develop the country.
In his speech, traditional authority (T/A) Kalonga who was the guest of honor said the prayers came at the right time when the district’s stakeholders are doing all they can to make sure that Karonga and Malawi in general should have peaceful, violence free and credible elections that will be accepted by every contestant.
“As a traditional leader, I can say that this is a good development. We have always advocated for peaceful and violence free elections not only in Karonga central but the whole Karonga district and Malawi as a whole. We don’t want to lose lives.
“Let me also urge all politicians to avoid politics of hate speech and name calling during campaign, we want issue based politics,” Kalonga said.
Karonga district pastors’ fraternal chairperson Bishop Benson Chikapa said the reason why they organised these prayers was to bring together all Parliamentary and Local Government candidates to pray and share with them the word of God and urge them to be servants of the people and not masters of the electorates once they win.
“We chose Karonga central because when it comes to elections, this constituency is very crucial based on previous experience as we registered cases of violence. However, it is unfortunate that very few shadow candidates showed up,” bishop Chikapa said.
On her part, Karonga district police Officer In-charge Rhoda Manjolo assured of her office’s continued tight security before, during and after elections to ensure that peace prevails in the district.
Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM) in partnership with World Vision Malawi provided the technical support and only two shadow MPs from Karonga Central turned up while four Ward Councilors came for prayers.
