Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Director of Research, Ken Zikhale Ng’oma, has projected that President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera will scoop 71 percent of the total votes to be cast in 2025, trashing a forecast by a United Kingdom (UK)-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
In its latest report, EIU predicted that Chakwera would face a tough ride to retain his seat because of the food and fuel shortages, low foreign exchange reserves, corruption and unemployment.
It adds that the Malawi leader will continue to lead a minority government, with limited support from other members of the governing Tonse Alliance [such as the UTM Party of Vice-President Saulos Chilima and the People’s Party of former president Joyce Banda], owing to infighting about succession issues.
“Joint parliamentary and presidential elections are due in September 2025. At the next polls, Mr. Chakwera and the MCP face probable defeat, as the Tonse Alliance is disintegrating, owing to internal strife,” reads the report in part.
But Zikhale Ng’oma has trashed the report, challenging that Chakwera will win the polls with landslide.
The Homeland Security minister made the sentiments during the Hot Current programme beamed live on Times Television on Sunday, June 2 2023.
He told programme hosts Brian Banda and Jonah Pankuku that the economic problems EIU is citing in its report are a result of the rot and mis-reporting the former governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) made to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“This country was rotten under the DPP. I wonder why you, journalists, are not telling Malawians that our economy is struggling because of that rot, which the DPP government made. And it’s the Chakwera administration that is fixing those problems,” he said.
Quizzed about an alleged agreement Chakwera is said to have signed with Chilima that he would hand over the baton to his second-in-command in 2025, Zikhale Ng’oma dared the hosts to produce the agreement.
“Kodi inu, kuti anthuwo azibwera pamodzi, mesa ndi ineyo ndi amene ndinachititsa kuti zonse zitheke. I am a strategist. Although they don’t want to mention it, but I am the one who did it,” he claimed.
He challenged the programme hosts to produce a copy of the said agreement let alone read to him its contents. Apparently, Chilima told Malawians that he had agreed with Chakwera that he [Chilima] would lead the alliance in 2025.
The Vice President made the sentiments at a press briefing he held a few days after he was named among alleged beneficiaries of bribes from Zuneth Sattar.
But Zikhale Ng’oma insisted that there is no such an agreement and that is why MCP leadership has settled to field Chakwera in the next poll.
“Inuyo munawafunsa kuti abweretse chomwe anagwirizana. Anakubweretserani? Inuyo document ya mgwirizanowu mdayiwona? Chifukwa inuyo mmafuna anthu awombane mitu. Mmafuna kuti anthu aulule zamkatimu. Ndiye ndikukufunsani kuti munayiwona document’yo? Ndiye ndalezo. Ndi chifukwa chake ndikuti msamalowelere ndale. Eni ake akumwa Fanta, Coke uko, inu muli busy kuwombana mitu,” he said.
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