Anti-Bakili Muluzi / MALAWI POLITICS TODAY

Give Back Muluzi's Money, MPs Tell Tembo

GREGORY GONDWE
for The Chronicle Newspaper (Lilongwe)

Thirty-nine Members of Parliament of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) have told their party president John Tembo to return any money he may have received from the former State President Bakili Muluzi for him to support impeachment attempts on State President Bingu wa Mutharika. "If you have pocketed some money from Muluzi as you did during the Open Term Bill, please 'Kabwezeni' (give it back). You (Tembo) are not going to be president of Malawi through impeachment process. You should read the constitution carefully before deciding to support Muluzi blindly," says the MPs in a letter dated December 8, 2005 addressed to Tembo.
The MPs advise Tembo that that voting to impeach Bingu is tantamount to allowing Muluzi back in through Chilumpha who will take over to continue to manipulate and further destroy the country. "Everyone who understands the power struggles in Malawi knows that the only reason UDF is gunning for Bingu's impeachment is that he quit their party and prevented them from playing a central role in destroying our country further," say the MPs before querying: "Does that concern us as MCP?" Other than impeachment, the MPs suggest that as parliamentarians they need to focus on ways to put into place mechanisms that would prevent the president and other government officials from abusing their power by, among other things misusing public resources. "If President Bingu wa Mutharika is using government resources to build and run his party, then he must stop this nonsense immediately," warns the MPs in the letter which The Chronicle has sourced.
The MPs who are accusing Tembo over welding too much power warns him to slow down lest he be faced with a revolution that could unseat him. "You Honourable Tembo must be reminded that absolute power intoxicates its holder [and] intoxicated leaders forget to plug loopholes, which they take to be simple and take the oppressed for granted." "Yet there are these seemingly 'diminutive' acts that sometimes stand out to trigger off a 'silent movement' and later bulge out into an 'insurmountable revolution. Neglecting of your MPs voice would one day, not far from now, bring the 'revolution trigger'. You are so obsessed with dirty political tactics, that without them you would be finished," read the letter in part.
The MPs also warn Tembo not to force himself on people by trying to wipe out the presence of the party's life President, the late Dr, Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
The MPs expressed shock that while President Mutharika is trying to restore the name of Kamuzu, Tembo intends to erase Kamuzu's face on party clothes and replace it with his own portrait. Tembo is said to have made these suggestions at a public rally he addressed in Area 25 towards the end of last year.