By IPS Correspondents
BLANTYRE, Apr 22 2003 (IPS)

Malawi’s ruling party seems to be in crisis.

The problem heightened after a top member of the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) threw in the towel, leaving behind ripples of drama in the party which analysts predict may lose most of its founding members ahead of next year’s general elections.

Aleke Banda, a veteran of Malawi politics, resigned on Apr 18, citing "intolerable differences" with Muluzi’s leadership.

"I can no longer associate myself in good conscience with the senior leadership of UDF. They are intolerant of attempts to change things from within. Obviously this is a departure from the democratic principles that the UDF has all along cherished," said Banda, a founding member of the party, in a four-page letter.

Banda’s resignation, which analysts say did not come as a surprise, begun to tell soon after he was dropped from cabinet, along with senior ally Harry Thomson and three other ministers, recently.

Banda says Muluzi fired him, as minister of agriculture, because of his criticism of the President’s hand-picked successor, Bingu wa Mutharika, whom he claims has been imposed on the party. Muluzi strongly denies the claim.

Hitting back, Muluzi’s followers ridicule Banda as a failure in Malawi politics. They say the man who started his political career at the age of 17 was a failure at his own game. And that Banda, 64, has failed to win a parliamentary seat twice in his northern lakeshore district of Nkhatabay.

"How can somebody who never got a seat since the MCP era convince us that he is Presidential material? That’s unheard of," charged UDF deputy governor for southern region, Samson Msosa, at Muluzi’s rally in Bangwe, a suburb of Blantyre.

Banda, who is not related to the country’s first president, Kamuzu Banda, held various ministerial positions under the dictator’s Malawi Congress Party (MCP) between 1966 and 1980.

He was detained without trial for 12 years by Kamuzu Banda’s regime from 1980 and only released after international pressure to introduce political reforms.

Following his sacking, Banda’s supporters pulled down Muluzi’s portrait and replaced it with their leader’s. They also ripped UDF’s flag into pieces.

Banda insists, in his resignation letter, that President Muluzi has thrown the party’s democratic ideals to the winds by imposing Mutharika upon the party.

Banda says he, along with Speaker Sam Mpasu, Vice-President Justin Malewezi and Thomson, tried to persuade Muluzi to respect the right of every candidate aspiring for party leadership, prior to the UDF’s national executive meeting where Mutharika finally emerged as the party’s flag bearer.

"It’s sad that people in such respectable positions want to convince the nation that ‘elections’ took place in the stage-managed executive and cabinet meeting, and that they are vilifying those who say the truth," says Banda.

Banda says he is currently consulting Malawians on how he can contribute to national development, although rumours say he is planning to form a new political party.

Analysts say Banda’s resignation could inspire more founding members to resign from the party. Banda, Brown Mpinganjira, Thomson, Muluzi and Joseph Kubwalo, who is now Malawi’s ambassador to Tanzania, are some of the members who formed the UDF in 1993.

Muluzi’s recent cabinet appointments also have enraged some top party officials.

Speaker Mpasu, who was named as new Commerce and Industry minister, has rejected the post, saying the President did not consult him.

"When does one become minister? Is it when his name has been announced or when he takes the oath of cabinet minister? Without this oath, I’m not a minister, and I’m still Speaker," protested Mpasu, upon returning from Nigeria where he co-led a Parliamentary election observer team.

Legal experts argue that Mpasu cannot be forced to assume a post he does not want.

"If honorable (Mpasu) has refused to take up the cabinet post which the constitution entitles him to if he so wishes, then he would remain Speaker," says Edge Kanyongolo, a respected Malawian legal expert.

But Malawi’s new Attorney General, Peter Fachi, has declared Mpasu’s post, of Speaker of Parliament, vacant.

So far, Mpasu has ruled out resigning from parliament.

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