A prominent member of Malawi\u2019s opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) said President Bingu Wa Mutharika\u2019s call on his supporters to \u201caggressively\u201d defend him is an incitement to violence.<\/p>\n
Humphrey Mvula, vice president of the UDF, said many Malawians are expressing concern over what he describes as Mutharika\u2019s dictatorial tendencies.<\/p>\n
Mutharika has often accused international donors of funding and supporting the opposition to destabilize Malawi, charges political parties have dismissed as without merit.<\/p>\n
He has also accused civil society groups and some media organizations who oppose his \u201cleadership style\u201d of causing anarchy. Mutharika called on his supporters to defend him from opposition attacks and insults.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Mutharika] called on his supporters to defend him and to attack anyone who spoke against him, or who held him accountable in any corner of life. Being the president of the nation, he is supposed to be held accountable by the electorate and those that speak for the electorate,\u201d said Mvula. \u201cThat is the real reason why the opposition is making those accusations that he has delivered [incendiary rhetoric] this year and last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s supporters said reserves the right to urge them to defend \u201ctheir father\u201d from opposition attacks. But, Mvula said Mutharika\u2019s call was unfortunate and out of place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is becoming unbearable where the president wants to deal with the opposition or members who don\u2019t belong to his party, it becomes dangerous,\u201d said Mvula. \u201cJust imagine, if the president is asking his supporters to defend him, assault other people, [then] what will happen to all other political leaders? And, if we all start saying we should be defended by our own supporters, is that not causing anarchy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mutharika has come under increasing pressure to resolve what opponents say is the economic crisis. They blame him for failing to resolve disputes with international donors, who are withholding funds to the southern African nation.<\/p>\n
Donor support constitutes about 40 percent of Malawi\u2019s annual budget. Analysts say the country\u2019s previous economic gains could be derailed if the donors continue to withhold funds<\/p>\n
Mvula said the president is to blame if the country is plunged into violence and political instability. He blames Malawi\u2019s economic crisis on what he called Mutharika\u2019s bad policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe economic policies that worked during the first term have been thrown through the window,\u201d said Mvula. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a program with the IMF, we don\u2019t have a program with the World Bank, and we are not receiving aid from the traditional donors. These are basically governance issues, bad laws and poor economic policies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A prominent member of Malawi\u2019s opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) said President Bingu Wa Mutharika\u2019s call on his supporters to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221],"tags":[525,465,538,1787],"class_list":["post-7744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-malawi-democracy","tag-bingu","tag-dpp","tag-udf","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}