When the entertainment-starved masses flocked to DPP rallies Peter Mutharika addressed for the first time in Thyolo, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Zomba after the death of his brother, Bingu, the party’s zealots were quick to preach to us it was a sign of its resurgence and redemption.

PP was warned that 2014 would not be a walkover and that Joyce Banda may just be a beneficiary of death and that she would rule only for two years.

Some of us thought this was just a DPP knee-jerk reaction meant to massage the party’s overly bruised ego after the death of its leader.

This was a couple of month ago. Fast-forward this to this week and specifically to the results of two by-elections in Mzimba and what you get are Malawians telling DPP that they are not interested in its stories based on propaganda, lies and a figment of its imagination.

Bearing in mind that both seats were originally won by DPP candidates in the name of Vice-President Khumbo Kachali and the late professor Donton MKandawire, this is a slap in the face for the party which it cannot wish away.

In both races, DPP was a distant third and only beating obscure candidates who, perhaps, did not have a backing of anybody financially to put up a worthy campaign.

So, what does the party of the Mutharikas tell us this time? Where are the people that were flocking to its rallies.

But here is my own take. As I keep on harping every week, Malawians have never been known to be miserable idiots.

In many ways, DPP and the late Bingu wa Mutharika wronged Malawians so much. They ran this country as their own fiefdom and the rest of us were mere slaves whom they could kill and maim as they wished.

The greatest crime was committed on July 20 last year when 20 people were murdered by police in daylight. Their only crime was demanding good governance and economic rights during constitutionally granted demonstrations.

During the same year, a Polytechnic engineering student, Robert Chasowa, was also murdered at his own campus.

Police were so quick to say it was suicide when it was quite clear that the so-called suicide note was manufactured.

It is only this week that we have learnt conclusively after a report by a commission that the boy was killed in cold blood maybe for his political views and activism.

I can go on until cows come home documenting the atrocities that DPP committed against Malawians during its rule until April this year: the mishandling of the economy, the bungling of foreign relations, unnecessary quarrels with neighbours, it is an endless list.

Yet, DPP has refused to take responsibility and issue an unconditional apology to Malawians.

DPP has refused to bring to book those that killed Malawians on July 20 and identify the person who gave the illegal order that live ammunition be used on hapless and defenceless civilians.

Instead, the party has the guts on going about in the country telling masses empty slogans and propaganda, lying to itself that it has finally found redemption after the death of its founder.

But I have no problems with DPP going about cheating itself. That is its choice.

I will only find solace in the fact that Malawians are not so foolish to risk trusting power once again into the hands of shameless murderers masquerading and trading as a changed political unit.

Meanwhile, I will wait in comfort as the countdown to 2014 when Malawians will hand DPP the mother of all defeats to atone for its sins once and for all.