United Transformation Movement (UTM) has reacted to claims by its alliance partner the Malawi Congressed Party (MCP) that there is no written document proving that there will rotation of president under Tonse Alliance as said by the State Vice President Saulos Chilima.
On Friday, July 1st, 2022 Chilima who is also the UTM president addressed the nation and partly revealed some of the things in the Tonse Alliance agreement he made with MCP leader Lazarus Chakwera who is also the country’s head of state.
According to Chilima, the two agreed that the one who stood for presidency in the fresh presidential elections will not stand in the next elections but the one who was running mate will be eligible to stand, in this case. Chilima is expected to stand as president in 2025 and Chakwera to campaign for his as it was in 2020.
Just hours after Chilima’s address, top officials from MCP led by the party’s secretary general Eisenhower Mkaka trashed Chilima’s claims adding that as a party they do not know if such document exists
According to Mkaka, as MCP the will follow what the country’s supreme law says in the next elections.
Speaking to one of the country’s local media house, UTM’s spokesperson Frank Mwenifumbo asked MCP to produce its own document if they are refuting the one vice president revealed which is saying otherwise.
According to Mwenifumbo, it is shocking that Mkaka shameless denied the existence of Tonse Alliance agreement in which he was one of the key witnesses.
According to Mwenifumbo, if Mkaka and the MCP would have that the document is would have been less understandable, but saying that the do not know the existence of such document is absurd.
“Mkaka is a government minister and with such alterations he is taking away the confidence and trust in government because how will people trust them? Because Malawians witnessed everything when our leaders were signing those agreement documents at Kamuzu Institute in Lilongwe,” said Mwenifumbo.
President Chakwera is yet to comment on the cracks that have emerged in the Tonse Alliance.
