President Peter Mutharika has condemned political violence in the country, according to a statement issued by Presidential Press Secretary Mgeme Kalirani.
Read the full statement below:
His Excellency Prof. Arthur Peter Mutharika would like to register his disappointment with political violence that took place at Nsundwe a couple of days ago and the one that occured in Phalombe and Mulanje on Friday the 29th of May, 2020 .
The President is informed that community members from Nsundwe who recently defected from the Malawi Congress Party and joined the Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) are being displaced from their homes.
Some have had their houses destroyed and are being chased from the community for choosing to support the Democratic Progressive Party. Such behavior is barbaric.
The President would like to remind all Malawians that, as he has said on numerous occasions, political violence has no place in our democracy and it should be condemned in the strongest terms.
While on the same matter, the President would like to also register his disappointment with the conduct of opposition political party leaders in relation to political violence and hate speech in the country.
The political violence in Phalombe and Mulanje on Friday comes on the background of opposition party leaders and their supporters celebrating and praising the violence opposition-sponsored hoodlums inflicted on innocent Democratic Progressive Party supporters who were innocently escorting the President’s convoy in Ndirande Township recently.
Further, the political violence in Mulanje and Phalombe comes against a background of irresponsible verbal attacks on prominent personalities and some tribes in the country at Njamba Freedom Park in Blantyre by senior members of the so-called Tonse Alliance. Such conduct is inflammatory and irresponsible. It must stop.
All politicians should be responsible with their utterances and should avoid deliberately insulting and provoking other people in the name of doing politics.
As a true democrat, Prof. Arthur Peter Mutharika reiterates that our politics and political campaigns should be issue based. It should be devoid of hate speech, tribal profiling and personal attacks . Politics is supposed to be a competition of policies and ideologies, not otherwise
Finally, the President would like to emphasize that he strongly condemns violence in whatever form.
His Excellency, Prof Arthur Peter Mutharika is calling upon the police to investigate all cases of violence and make sure that all those perpetrating violence in the name of politics are brought to book.
