By Robert Kumwenda

Umodzi Party (UP) President Professor John Chisi has warned political party leaders in the country to be careful with speeches they make during campaign rallies, saying the speeches have the power to incite violence.

Chisi remarks follow what the leader of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Dr Lazarus Chakwera said in a whistle stop tour in Mzimba.

Chakwera was quoted as saying that government wants to rig the elections using a spy machine by hacking the systems during forthcoming 2019 polls.

“Political leaders should focus on issue based politics rather than saying things that can influence people to start violence,” he said.

He said some political leaders already know that they will never win the elections so they are just trying to say this and that just to get public sympathy.

Chisi remarks also follows what some political analysts urged political leaders to refrain from politics of castigation and saying things that incite people to start violence as the country draw closer to elections.

In a related development the Vice President Dr Saulos Chilima who is the leader of United Transformation Movement (UTM) also said that he knows that government wants to rig the 2019 elections during the launch of the movement at Masintha ground in Lilongwe.

“People are eager to hear what is is that you are going to do if the vote you into power not hate speeches whose aim is just to tarnish the image of the government and its leadership,” he said.

Political leaders in the country were told to learn lessons from the after math of the elections that were held recently in Zimbabwe where six people were shot dead by the soldiers following the violence that erupted when the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced results of the presidential elections.