UDF youths write Atupele Muluzi
The autonomous United Democratic Front (UDF) Youth and Interim Committee have called the president of the party Atupele Muluzi to, among others, involve the National Executive Committee (Nec) on important decision of the party such as electoral coalitions.
Through a letter in our possession date January 15 2020, from the committee titled ‘call to revisit UDF mission, vision and guiding principles’ addressed to Muluzi, the concerned party members are also recommending re-engineering of the party to an effective institution capable of mediating and reconciling societal interests.
“In order to compete effectively in the political landscape, you should step up efforts aimed at developing intra-party democracy as well as accountability and transparency of the decision making. It is only then that you will able to establish a long-term strategy as well as internal rules which would compete and strengthen our party,” reads part of the letter.
Efforts to speak to Muluzi proved futile as he could not pick up our calls on several attempts.
UDF spokesperson Ken Ndanga confirmed about the letter but was quick to say it is an internal matter which the party intends to resolve internally.
“I think I have heard something like that but I am not so sure whether the president has received it. But if people have raised such issues in the letter, I think those are internal matters which will be resolved internally and that, in UDF, we believe in democracy and that people are free to raise issues anytime with the leaders. I think that is what makes the leadership to be good leaders,” he said.
In a telephone interview yesterday, president of the youth Osman Thousand said, though Muluzi has not formally responded to their concerns, the UDF leader has displayed change.
“Actually, it was about some issues that we have in the party, more specifically intra-party democracy, that is what we were lobbying for. Because it came to our attention that, as an autonomous youth wing, some processes, especially internal consultations were done.
“As a liberal party, we were supposed to go through all these processes to make sure that we have diverse views on how to move forward but that has not been the case in our party. So we just wanted to make sure that we put that in the right place. That is what was condemned in totality. Of late, we have noted the president consulting and updating Nec, lately he met the leader of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and he updated Nec and this is what we wanted,” he said.
Muluzi, who was a Cabinet minister during President Peter Mutharika’s first five-year term until May 21 Tripartite Elections, last week promised to support MCP leader Lazarus Chakwera should there be a presidential election re-run.
In June last year, some UDF Members of Parliament expressed reservations to be in a parliamentary working relationship again with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as they did during the previous Parliament before the May 21 polls.
Before the May 21 elections, UDF was in possible alliance talks with DPP which hit a snag due to disagreements on matters of running mate in case of a coalition.
