By Draxon Maloya
As major political parties are still maintaining a tight lid on how they intend to contest in the forthcoming presidential polls in terms of pairing, the United Transformation Movement (UTM) and United Democratic Front leaders have not collected their nomination forms.
With the presentation of nomination papers by candidates slated for next week , UTM’s Saulos Chilima and UDF’s Atupele Muluzi have started giving signals to their followers that they have opted to go in as running mates.
Malawi Congress Party (MCP) candidate, Lazarus Chakwera and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Peter Mutharika are among the ten other contestants who have already collected their nomination papers.
Director of Media and Public Relations, Sangwani Mwafulirwa on Friday confirmed that at least ten aspiring presidential candidates have collected their nomination forms which they intend to present on Wednesday or Thursday next week upon completion in fulfilling the requirements.
“I can’t say how many forms have been collected so far, but when I checked so few days ago I found that ten aspirants have collected those nomination forms,“I can also confirm here that MCP and DPP collected their nomination papers, that also include Mbakuwaku Movement for Democracy,” Mwafulirwa said.
Commenting on the development DPP spokesperson, Ken Ndanga says, as a party in an alliance they have already agreed that Peter Mutharika is the torch bearer of the DPP-UDF alliance, while DPP’s Nicholas Dausi asked for more time to comment on the matter.
Our close source in the MCP-UTM alliance told us that they are keeping a tight lid because there is certainty surrounding the election since it is not known as to when the elections shall be held.
“When we reveal we need to be very sure that we are indeed going into an election, we believe the time is not right yet, when you look at all parties you will find that no party has come out clear in regards to their candidates,” he said.
The Chancellor college lecturer, Mustafa Hussein encouraged alliance partners to come out clearly on time so that electorates should have all the time to listen to their ambitions and aspirations.
The constitutional court called for a fresh presidential election following serious irregularities in the May 21st 2019 presidential polls in which the Malawi Electoral Commission was accused of failure in elections management