|
The Public Affairs Committee (Pac) will in the next two weeks start holding a series of meetings aimed at bringing together former president Bakili Muluzi and President Bingu wa Mutharika who have been engaged in a war of words over the past months.
Pac chair Father Boniface Tamani said Thursday the meeting will be the beginning of up to seven other meetings where eleven members from different churches that are part of the committee will brainstorm on how to reconcile the two warring forces.
“After the first two to three meetings, we will start involving big political shots before we meet the two leaders,” said Tamani.
He said the meetings would have already started by now but that there was need to identify funding to cover travel expenses for the delegates.
“We need over K500,000 to meet the expenses,” said Tamani.
But the priest refused to disclose the names of the people on the mediation talks.
He had indicated earlier on that he did not want to provoke a situation where the public would concentrate its attention on the mediators and start criticising them.
The feud between Mutharika and Muluzi has spilled into Parliament with most members of the National Assembly voting according to allegiance for either of them.
Asked if Muluzi is willing to go for the mediation, his spokesman Sam Mpasu said he could not say at the moment since the former president is out on holiday in the United Kingdom.
Government spokesman Ken Lipenga refused to comment on the matter but spokesman for Mutharika’s party DPP spokesman Hetherwick Ntaba had earlier on pushed back the blame over the wrangle to the UDF, saying the President has always said he is for a government of national unity and would be willing to go for a round-table with any political grouping or individuals.
“It was the UDF that did not want to work with others. The President has always been willing to work with whoever and so it’s not a question of whether he would be willing to come to a round-table. He is always for that,” said Ntaba.
|
