…trust him at your own peril, he has a forked tongue
…worked to undermine the Tonse Agreement from day 1
President Lazarus Chakwera has a forked tongue, and any politician making agreements should not believe a single word he says, close political and legal associates of the departed Vice President Saulos Chilima have said.
He said Chakwera and the ruling party have spent the last four years undermining the Tonse Alliance agreement, planting divisions in the UTM and never had intentions of leaving the seat that his May 31 declaration came as little surprise.
However, The Investigator Magazine has been told the President should expect political fireworks as some of the associates will seek to tell the real story, from his complicity in the Zuneth Sattar matter to his offers to the Late Chilima to back off in 2025.
The first is that Chakwera told the late vice president he would be made Prime Minister and run as president in 2030, an offer Chilima discussed with a few people and advisors.
“The dropping of the charges and the SKC should not run in 2025. A constitutional amendment was to be brought to make him Prime Minister. He never gave an affirmative answer but played fools with them. After almost four years of hell, they thought anyone could trust them,” said one of the associates.
The Investigator Magazine was told of the offer by senior Malawi Congress Party (MCP) officials in May, who leaked the story of his charges being dropped as part of the deal for the late Chilima not to stand in 2025.
“The late vice president consulted widely and was told people wanted him on the ballot. He started buying campaign equipment and was prepared to face Chakwera and tell Malawians the real story. We can’t speculate on his death, but we are sure he was going to run in 2025,” said another source.
A politician close to the departed Veep said he was angry that President Chakwera thought he could be trusted after literally breaking all campaign agreements and embarrassing him left and right.
“That’s why the genuine UTM members will not support or accept any appointment from him. He should sort out his mess without trying to use SKC supporters to buy sympathy and legitimacy. That man can’t be trusted- not even his greeting,” said the politician.
He said apart from being a candidate in 2025, Chakwera and late Chilima agreed that the vice president will assume the portfolio of Minister of Finance while MCP gets economic planning. The MCP would get Defence and Homeland Security, while UTM would get Energy, Tourism and Education. While the MCP would get the Minster of Justice, its alliance partner UTM would get the Attorney General’s post.
However, since he was sworn in on 28 June 2020, President Chakwera has been rewriting the Tonse Agreement, showing greed, nepotism, and an attitude that has destroyed Malawians’ trust in this administration.
“From day one, it became clear we were in a ride. Many of us asked him to pull out, and he asked us to what? For Finance he brought a friend who had no experience in public finance, now he appointed a total disaster who does his will. For the Attorney General did not want Dr Chikosa Silungwe’s professional advice, and he was quick to fire and arrest UTM patron Newton Kambala at Energy and took away the post so he could facilitate deals,” charged another politician.
All those who spoke to The Investigator Magazine said Zuneth Sattar’s charges and subsequent announcement of ‘suspension’ by Chakwera when the ACB had told him not to mention names was clearly a political ploy to damage the vice president.
“SKC was bidding for his time. He asked everyone to be patient now, for President Chakwera should know if the plane crash does not finish his political career, those who believed in SKC and have that appropriate information he is too scared for the public to know, those men and women who are pained with his death, they have nothing to lose after losing SKC. His death is the beginning of the real political battle,” said a fourth source who confirmed the details of consultations.
President Chakwera replaced Kambala at Energy with Peoples Party Secretary General Ibrahim Matola, who is undermined by OPC and filled the Attorney General’s office with Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda, who has proven to be a political and legal liability.
SKC to decide elections in 2025 from the grave
Saulos Klaus Chilima might be buried in Nsipe, but his political influence now has shaken the President and his MCP as the vice president’s supporters are openly showing who they prefer to vote for, only a year and three months before elections.
In a reverse of the 2020 tide, it has been two years of President Chakwera avoiding certain roads, his convoy being blocked, jeered and at Chilima’s burial in Nsipe- he literally ran away in a similar fashion as the Late Du Chisiza’s use of Tumbuka word “dikita.”
After being booed and his lieutenants booed everywhere, the political space for President Chakwera shrunk further as angry mourners sang defiantly that “mudapha Chilima dziko mukhale nalo” which seemed to resonate with the crowds.
In contrast, Professor Peter Mutharika, former President and presumptive DPP candidate, seemed to have gained the trust of the mourners. They walked, cheered and escorted his convoy for the second time in a month, a painful political gesture for his rivals. This was confirmed by Information Minister Moses Kunkuyu’s reaction, which was that they were political mercenaries.
What Kunkuyu missed was that the booing and blocking of the president has been accumulating for the past year, and escorting Mutharika seems to be the norm now as power dynamics shift.
It is clear that should the President fail to hold an open inquiry that disapproves of conspiracy theories on the plane crash, the 2025 elections will be an easy task for whoever opposes him.
SKC followers, many fiercely loyal to him, are unlikely to vote for MCP or its candidate again after the four-year tragic experience, making him decide elections in 2025 with one million votes.
