By Pemphero Malimba:
The governing Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have pledged to conduct violence-free campaigns.
This comes at a time the country is in the official campaign period, in readiness for the September 16, 2025 Local Government, Parliamentary and Presidential Elections.
The campaign period, which was launched on Monday last week, runs up to September 14 this year.
Speaking during the MCP manifesto and campaign period launching ceremony in Lilongwe on Saturday, the party’s secretary general (SG) Richard Chimwendo Banda said the party would ensure that its campaign is conducted peacefully across the country.
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“We will do this campaign peacefully without any form of violence. We will do this campaign while observing rights of every Malawian. This country chose the multiparty system of government and, as such, every member of the Malawi Congress Party should not be tempted to engage in violence,” he said.
The SG said President Lazarus Chakwera was the hope of Malawians and expressed confidence that he would win the presidential poll.
He highlighted that a winning team did not require violence to win elections.
“Chakwera is a winning candidate. I always say a winning team does not injure others in football. The Republican Constitution provides that a president has to serve two terms, which means serving Malawians for 10 years. They knew that when someone starts a development project, he has to finish it. As such, whatever you [President Chakwera] have started needs to be completed by yourself and that is why we should give you another five years to govern this country,” he said.
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In a related development, DPP spokesperson Shadric Namalomba said the party would disqualify candidates that would be involved in perpetrating political violence.
Namalomba said this was in line with a code of conduct formulated by the party ahead of the upcoming elections.
“When a candidate has been involved in violence, leadership in that area will have to lodge a complaint with the disciplinary committee and this committee has to meet and make a determination. Once a determination has been made, the suspect has to be sanctioned or disqualified. We do believe that Mec (Malawi Electoral Commission), through its own code of conduct, would take it up from there,” he said.
The DPP spokesperson said the party was engaging its candidates to follow its code of conduct and embrace issue-based campaigning.
“So far, we have conducted sensitisation meetings premised on this code of conduct with candidates in the Southern Region, Central Region, Eastern Region. We will do the same thing with candidates in the Northern Region. What we want is to ensure that our candidates embrace an issue-based campaign; they do not need to use violence to influence voters; no,” Namalomba said.
Meanwhile, political commentator George Chaima has urged political parties to embrace the Mec code of conduct and speak against violence.
“These are policies that can assist this country to be peaceful in this campaign period,” Chaima said.
