{"id":35769,"date":"2016-11-17T15:38:32","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T13:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=35769"},"modified":"2016-11-18T11:35:08","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T09:35:08","slug":"dpp-sg-kudontoni-dies-in-accident-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2016\/11\/17\/dpp-sg-kudontoni-dies-in-accident-2\/","title":{"rendered":"DPP SG Kudontoni dies in accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic Progressive Party Secretary General Ecklen Kudontoni died Thursday morning in a road accident at Kasese Trading Centre in Dowa, the party confirmed.<\/p>\n

Kudontoni was driving towards Kasungu on the M1 Road when, according to an eyewitness, the right front wheel of the Toyota Fortuner he was driving came off, which forced the car to swerve.<\/p>\n

The eyewitness said Kudontoni was thrown out of the vehicle through the windscreen onto the tarmac road. The car eventually overturned about 15 metres from where he fell.<\/p>\n

He was alone in the vehicle.<\/p>\n

Kudontoni was rushed to the nearby Kasese Health Centre where he was confirmed dead on arrival.<\/p>\n

His body was later taken to Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe awaiting an agreement between the family and the party on the funeral arrangements, according to DPP Publicity Secretary Francis Kasaila.<\/p>\n

Scores of DPP members kept vigil at the hospital for much of Thursday and some party sympathisers, mostly women, were seen weeping.<\/p>\n

During a reshuffle of the party\u2019s national governing council in October 2014, Kudontoni was appointed secretary general <\/a>after the post holder at the time, Jean Kalilani, was relegated to the position of the party\u2019s NGC special advisor.<\/p>\n

Kasaila said the party was deeply moved by Kudontoni and would miss his services.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonourable Kudontoni\u2019s death is a huge loss to the party. He was dedicated to the party. The party will miss his services,\u201d Kasaila said.<\/p>\n

Kudontoni, who came from Salima, served as Member of Parliament for Salima Central for UDF from 1999 until 2004 when he lost the seat to a Malawi Congress Party candidate. He contested again in 2009 as an independent candidate but he lost out to a DPP candidate.<\/p>\n

He served in UDF\u2019s Central Region executive committee for a long time but he left after the 2009 elections to join DPP.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s major political parties have also expressed shock with the death of Kudontoni.<\/p>\n

United Democratic Front (UDF) Publicity Secretary Ken Ndanga said the party was shocked with the death of Kudontoni who had been its long time member before his defection.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are mourning with his family. He served as our MP for Salima Central from 1999 to 2004. He also served in our regional committee before he joined DPP. He was a long time UDF member such that we still appreciate the role he played in strengthening the party especially in Salina where he was coming from. The fact that he left [the party] does not make us forget the role he played,\u201d said Ndanga.<\/p>\n

Malawi Congress Party Second Deputy Secretary General Eisenhower Mkaka said his party is also shocked by Kudontoni\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a party we are very saddened by his death. He was not an ordinary person. He was a Malawian first. We mourn with his family,\u201d Mkaka said.<\/p>\n

People\u2019s Party (PP) acting president, Uladi Mussa, has described Kudontoni\u2019s death as saddening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked with him in UDF. He was very dedicated in whatever he was doing. As PP, we are very saddened by his death. Our condolences to the family and to the party,\u201d Mussa said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic Progressive Party Secretary General Ecklen Kudontoni died Thursday morning in a road accident at Kasese Trading Centre in Dowa, the party confirmed. Kudontoni was driving towards Kasungu on the M1 Road when, according to an eyewitness, the right front wheel of the Toyota Fortuner he was driving came off, which forced the car to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35769"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35864,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35769\/revisions\/35864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}