Joyce Banda retains party leadership
By Jameson Chauluka
Former President Joyce Banda has been re-elected as People’s Party (PP) leader during the second elective convention being held at Robin’s Park, in Blantyre.
The national conference, which started yesterday, saw Banda winning by 1,101 beating her challenger Leonard Mphiza who only managed 23 votes.
The convention ends today. Other PP senior members that retained their positions were Kasungu North lawmaker Beatrice Mwale as VP for the central region, But Ralph Mhone, leader of PP in parliament, was announced as VP for the north after incumbent and MP for Rumphi East Kamlepo Kalua pulled out of the race.
Roy Kachale, son to Joyce Banda and Zomba Malosa MP, went unopposed as VP Eastern region and Ephraim Chivunde was elected as VP for southern region. Ibrahim Matola retained his position as Secretary General of the party.
Earlier, Banda told Daily Times in an exclusive interview that PP is ready to partner with any party in an electoral alliance and that she would not assume any position if it came to that.
“I should say it clearly here that if the party agrees to into an alliance, it’ does not have to be me leading. We will have discussions with strategic partners and decide who would lead for sake of Malawians. Otherwise I have been President before and I believe that I have served the country well,” Banda said
Malawi goes to the polls in nine months’ time to elect a president, Members of Parliament and Ward Councilors
In her opening speech, she bragged about her accomplishments when she was Head of State and defended her record on the fight against corruption saying she instituted an independent forensic audit that revealed that K30 billion in public funds had been looted.
She said that when PP took over government in 2012, “our country was experiencing deteriorating record of both political and economic governance, among these were, persistent shortage of foreign exchange, fuel and utilities like electricity and water which negatively impacted on business and peoples’ daily livelihoods, poor observance of human rights and deteriorating diplomatic relations with Malawi’s neighbours and its development partners where most of development support come from, was withheld or cancelled.”
She also said that there was growing anger and discontent among citizens against the manner in which the country was being governed including corruption, patronage, arrests of government critics, passing of unpopular laws.
“So in my first 100 days my government set out to resolve all these problems and we did manage to do that,” she said.
Banda, who is also credited for reducing maternal mortality from 675 per 100,000 births to 460 in her two year term, was not shy to say her party is ready to rule again come 2019.
Touching on the theme of the convention ‘Prosperity for All’, Banda told the 1,800 delegates that the party was gearing to implement what she called phase two of its development agenda to benefit of all Malawians.
“On agriculture, we will introduce universal subsidy of farm inputs. I know that some people will disagree with me to say it is not possible but People’s Party has been surprising its critics and we will surprise them again,” she said.
Banda then pledged to exploit minerals to benefit Malawians saying the country has a lot of wealth which is not being adequately utilised.
On education, Banda said the country needs to improve the quality of education at all levels from primary, secondary to tertiary education.
“I do not believe that it is a matter of constructing too many colleges. We should improve the quality of education and quality of life for our students at all levels. Chancellor College students for example should not be lodging at Chikanda or Domasi, commuting daily to school,” she said.
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