Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters Monday chanted and sang songs of praise for Vice-President Saulos Chilima, asking him to stand as Member of Parliament in the city.<\/p>\n
The supporters, clad in party colours, alighted from three 15-tonne trucks and camped outside Chilima\u2019s Area 12 official residence, where they sang and chanted for over 30 minutes, eyewitnesses said.<\/p>\n
The supporters only left after Chilima came out of the residence to join President Peter Mutharika for the official opening of the Tobacco Auction Floors.<\/p>\n
Frank Chimsewu, a driver who has been operating heavy-duty vehicles that ferry building materials within the city and witnessed the drama, said he was surprised to see three 15-tonne trucks carrying DPP supporters who were chanting party songs in support of Chilima.<\/p>\n
Another witness, James Kana, said he was very surprised to see the vehicles branching off to the Vice-President\u2019s house Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always work from here and I have not, in four years, seen DPP supporters coming here, dancing or chanting songs. I was very surprised,\u201d Kana said.<\/p>\n
This comes days after former first lady, Callista Mutharika, tore into the party\u2019s leadership and endorsed Chilima for president, saying her in-law, President Peter Mutharika, cannot win next year\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n
Her frank talk, however, has irked many DPP loyalists, who are reportedly threatening her. It has also brought to the fore the leadership quagmire the party finds itself in.<\/p>\n
Party secretary general, Gresselder Jeffrey, could not be reached for comment yesterday as she was reportedly attending a meeting.<\/p>\n
The ruling party is yet to announce the date for its elective conference, which is expected to resolve leadership issues in the party.<\/p>\n
Insiders say that the party has three factions; the Chilima faction, the Ben Phiri team and the Kondwani Nankhumwa camp. Embattled DPP vice president for the south, George Chaponda, is also still in the run.<\/p>\n
But yesterday, during the opening of the auction floors, Jeffrey told the public that Mutharika and Chilima will run on the same ticket come 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters Monday chanted and sang songs of praise for Vice-President Saulos Chilima, asking him to stand as Member of Parliament in the city. The supporters, clad in party colours, alighted from three 15-tonne trucks and camped outside Chilima\u2019s Area 12 official residence, where they sang and chanted for over 30 minutes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63762","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\/63762","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=63762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63764,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63762\/revisions\/63764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}