By Daniel Itai – The Zimbabwe Daily
Harare, Zimbabwe – Opposition parties in Zimbabwe have shared mixed feelings over the just ended Presidential elections in Malawi.
On Saturday, the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) declared Dr. Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) that ultimate winner after he secured 59.34 percent of the national votes against the outgoing President, Prof. Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who managed to gunner only 39.92 percent of the national vote.
However, LEAD president, Linda Masarira said there was nothing to really celebrate about as the results were due to a sophisticated coup.
“The judiciary and the armed forces played a pivotal role in bringing back the revolutionary party into power.
It was a sophisticated coup there isn’t really much to celebrate or emulate, there is no new dawn for the opposition it’s actually a rebirth of the revolutionary party,” said Masarira.
On Saturday, the outgoing Malawian President said that this year’s Presidential elections were the worst he had ever seen since Malawi attained its independence more than four decades ago, “some of our members were beaten and assaulted, this is the worst election I have ever witnessed.”
However, for ZimFirst leader, Dr. Maxwell Rusike Shumba, the Malawian Presidential polls proved that coalitions are the way forward for the opposition in Africa.
“Every African country is unique depending on how the ruling party is entrenched in the socioeconomic aspect.
One thing that the opposition can derive from the Malawian Presidential elections is that the opposition needs to unite.
Unity builds and there is victory in unity. That’s the key message, the winner in Malawi was able to do so because he was able to build a coalition. There is nothing that happened in Malawi that will require extraordinary capital, astuteness won the day and it is possible,” said the ZimFirst leader.
