Political parties in the opposition should forget about going into government in the coming 2014 general elections as they will continue losing their strong members to the ruling party courtesy of greed and poverty, commentators have observed.
The observation was in response to whether the opposition is strong enough to go into the government in the forth coming general elections.
“There is no sense in them [leaders of opposition political parties] apart from poverty, driven by greed. They don’t want even to suffer and go through some process of how best they could do some engineering with their current party so that it wins the coming elections.
“These are people who are struggling in poverty. These are people who are used to easy money. These are people are used to survive on state resources. Now, with that link’s cut, all they do is jump ship and go back to continue feeding on that breast [government resources],” said consumer rights activist John Kapito on Thursday.
Publicity Secretary for Public Affairs Committee (PAC) Maurice Munthali, while admitting that elections could be unpredictable, also said the future of the opposition side winning election in 2014 seems gloomy.
“Just because people champion personal ambition, egos and interest rather than the national interest, members of political parties tend to swing to where they can personally benefit rather than staying where they feel Malawians can benefit from them.
“By the time we come to elections [in 2014], the so called ruling party will have all the strong members to itsef leaving the opposition political parties weak and without a muscle to contest fairly and strongly in the elections,” Munthali said.
On his part, chairperson of Congress for Non-Governmental Organisations Voice Mhone also predicted doom for opposition parties unless political leaders show the heart to save the country rather than seeking personal gains.
“The dilemma is that the founders are more powerful than their political parties. That’s why political parties die natural deaths immediately once their founders join the government. And we have living example of such parties,” he said.
The commentators, therefore, urged all political parties to put their houses in order if they are to taste success in the forth coming elections.
But both the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) expressed optimism that they will go back into the government in 2014.
“Our policies like that of fertiliser subsidy are self-telling. In fact everything that the present government is doing is a copycat of the DPP: talk about the MGDS, priorities among priorities, safe motherhood all those are a brainchild of the DPP and we believe that’s what people want,” said DPP spokesperson Nicholas Dausi.
UDF secretary general Kennedy Makwangwala said he could not reveal what his party would do to win elections as that would be selling their tactics.
