Joyce Banda continues to blunder

President Joyce does not get tired to make blunders that are costly to her presidency and her political party.

She has appointed Uladi Mussa to a position that does not exist in the party’s rules, it has never been discussed by the party’s executive committee and has the makings of undermining people who were duly elected at the party’s convention.

It has been surprising many why Uladi Mussa, who lost his bid to be the vice president of the party (centre) to Cassim Chilumpha and is just an ordinary member of the party is these days among the curtaining raising speakers at Joyce Banda’s political rallies.
In fact Uladi comes immediately before Vice President Khumbo Kachali on the list of speakers, way above many speakers who hold senior elected positions.

A PP insider has just disclosed that Joyce Banda has set up a campaign commitee which will be chaired by Uladi Mussa. This is despite the fact that the party has an elected Director of Campaign Kalanzi Mbewe, whose deputy is Zikhale Ng’oma who was also elected at the convention.

Uladi Mussa asks people to vote for Joyce Banda during the 2014 elections so that like her predecessors she should also enjoy a full mandate of ten years, and yet the elected campaign directors are never allowed to speak even when they a present.

Kalanzi Mbewe only spoke on Saturday during a rally in Godffrey Kamanya’s constituency in Lilongwe because he was among the organisers of the meeting. And he spoke more or less like a frustrated district chairman, welcoming the president to the rally and assuring her that the people in the area were behind her.
Then Uladi Mussa took over to make a campaign speech wooing voters for Joyce Banda.

Having fired Cassim Chilumpha from cabinet she had hoped that he would be frustrated to the extent of ditching the party, a decision that would have created a vacancy in the vice presidency (centre) which she wanted filled by Uladi Mussa.

But realising that Chilumpha is unmoved and trying to push him out would create a nasty tussle, Joyce Banda just decided to give Uladi another position, lesser but influential in precedence.

It has been Joyce Banda’s way of doing things to override wishes of the people and giving her preferences positions that she creates without regard to the constitution or the executive committee.
The elections of the position of Treasurer General at the party’s convention were delayed for almost 24 hours to give way to behind the curtains negotiations.

The people’s favourite, Mijiga, was persuaded to step down from consideration for unpopular Harry Mkandawire whom Joyce Banda wanted.
To appease Mijiga, she created a position right on the floor of the convention and gave it to Mijiga to be one of her party based advisors on fundraising and finance management.

This position was created despite the fact that the position of Treasurer had been filled, a finance committee exists, and almost all money transactions are routed through one of President Joyce Banda’s sisters, Cecilia Kumpukwe.