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When you listen to speeches by local politicians the impression you get is that political parties in the country belong to people, including those at the grassroots level, but the ordinary members see their parties as more of personal property of the founders, particularly their presidents.
“Political parties belong to the presidents because they are the ones who form the parties,” said Mackford Alafuledi, a vendor in Lilongwe when his views on the matter were sought.
He said since party presidents and other executive members use their money to establish structures in different parts of the country, they have the right to claim party ownership.
“How can some of us claim to be part of the ownership when we have not made any contribution? People who fund the parties are the owners, and nobody else,” he said.
A man who refused to be identified said only the main opposition Malawi MCP is seen to belong to people and not its presidents.
“Since Kamuzu died that party has been the property of the people and not necessarily its president as is the case with the rest of the parties in the country,” he said adding that although its presidents can influence decisions, they cannot succeed to disband it for personal gain.
He was referring to National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which disbanded and got deregistered by the Registrar of political parties when its president Brown Mpinganjira announced that he had decided to rejoin the ruling UDF.
Commentators on the issue described the UDF as former head of state Bakili Muluzi’s property, disbanded NDA as Brown Mpinganjira’s and Chakufwa Chihana as owner of Aford.
“If NDA belonged to the people Mpinganjira would not have deregistered when he joined UDF. There are many NDA people who refused to join UDF and they would continue with the party if it really belonged to them all.”
Mpinganjira claimed he had consulted widely before he disbanded the party. But some members, including some of those who were in the national executive committee, disputed Mpinganjira’s claim and have been fighting to have the party re-registered.
“Political parties belong to their members only that they give powers to the president and executive members to make decisions on their behalf,” said Ben Mbewe, adding that the members also have the powers to dismiss decisions by the executive committee “if those decisions are not made in good faith”.
“You can clearly see that political parties belong to members during an election because that is the only time ordinary members speak through their vote.
“Generally, political parties belong to people who start them. It’s the president running the show, not even the executive committee,” Peter Jegwa Kumwenda said, citing the defunct NDA and UDF as examples.
“It’s not uncommon in Malawi to hear about ‘Brown’s NDA’ or ‘Muluzi’s UDF’. This shows how people perceive the political parties,” Kumwenda said adding that unanimous decisions party executive committees make indicate that the committees only rubber stamp the party leader’s aspirations.
When Muluzi declared Bingu wa Mutharika as his successor, its executive committee unanimously endorsed the decision, at least going by the official announcement. The same applied when Mpinganjira engaged the reverse gear to get into the armpit of the UDF.
Aford performed miserably in the May 20, 2004 general elections because the executive committee danced to the tune of its president to ‘dine and wine’with UDF.
Chihana dragged Aford into a coalition government with UDF at a time when a majority of people, including some UDF supporters, were against a proposed constitutional amendment to allow Muluzi extend his term of office.
UDF deputy secretary general Paul Maulidi is on record as saying the party would not survive without Muluzi. He is the sole financier of the party and that is why the national executive committee decided to create the position of national chairman for him after the abortive third term bid.
“Almost everything the party has [comes] from the president,” Maulidi told Weekend Nation last year.
Probably, Maulidi meant that UDF belongs to Muluzi and the same may be true with the other political parties.
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