Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) National Publicity Secretary Nicholas Harry Dausi has warned that party leader, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika (APM), that he risks facing revolt if he does not stop his dictatorial style of leadership.
Dausi – giving an exclusive interview with Times Television on Friday – revealed that APM is firing every National Governing Council (NGC) member who does not support his 2025 presidential bid.
The Mwanza Central legislator feared Mutharika’s tight grip on party presidency and his dictatorship style of leadership could divide the party further should the contesting candidates choose to dissociate with his leadership.
“Malawians love DPP very much. But they don’t like what is happening in the party and the earlier APM realizes this, the better!” said Dausi.
The bombastic-speaking MP further dared Mutharika to ‘stop living in denial that DPP lost because of him’.
“He must realize that there’s no life presidency in the DPP. Party presidency is not chieftainship that belongs to one clan only. So, he must give other candidates the chance to campaign as well,” stressed Dausi.
In a related development, founder of the Freedom of Worship and Economic Liberation (FOWEL), Prophet David Mbewe, has described as wayward the endorsements some party followers are making in favour of the frail Mutharika to run for the presidential election in 2025.
In a statement issued on Friday, Mbewe said those endorsing APM are a cabal of trialists ‘who would want to prolong the Lhomwe grip on the DPP without any sort of justification for doing so’.
“Some party members think by sticking to the old man who is 82 and in 2025 he will be 84 they may continue to plunder public resources as was the case between 2005 to 2012 under late Professor Bingu wa Mutharika and from 2014 to 2020 under Peter Mutharika,” alleged the prophet who also aspires to stand for the party in the 2025 presidential poll.
“It is of the view that this approach to the intraparty electoral process defeats the spirit of democracy believing that every aspiring candidate in the party including Prophet Mbewe must be given equal opportunity to sell their ideas to the delegates ahead of a Convention whose date remains unknown. ’FOWEL will continue observing events taking place in the party and make its stand when the right time comes,” he added.
Meanwhile, dozens of DPP members of Parliament (MPs) have joined hands in their attempts to stop the endorsement of Mutharika as 2025 presidential elections candidate.
This was after DPP Northern and Central Region committees endorsed Mutharika as their candidate, while the Eastern Region has vowed that peace will return only if APM is given another torchbearer’s mantle again.
