A legal expert, Danwood Chirwa, has issued a red alert warning, saying Malawi is heading back to the one party state.
According to Chirwa who is Dean of Law at University of Cape Town (UCT, the results of the May 21 election have shown that the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) will soon become the only party standing.
He noted that all parties formed after the onset of multiparty democracy were built around a family and not political ideology hence they cannot outlive the MCP.
“Aford, UDF and its splinter parties NDA, PP, and PPM are all dead. Given the poor performance in parliamentary elections, UTM, a grandchild of the UF won’t survive.
“DPP, a prodigious offspring of the UDF won’t survive too post the Mutharika family. Malawi will be left with one party which has survived it all, MCP. For MCP supporters this must come as consolation after the loss.
“For all Malawians, the future of democracy is in peril – and that is because all post 1994 political parties have been built around a family, not political ideology,” Chirwa said.
Malawi held parliamentary elections on May 21 in 192 of the country’s 193 constituencies.
The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) released results for the elections on Saturday.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has the highest number of Members of Parliament (MP) with 62, seven ahead of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) which has 55.
UTM has four MPs, UDF has 10, PP has 5, Aford has 1, while 55 are independent parliamentarians.
