{"id":76435,"date":"2019-04-04T06:21:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T04:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=76435"},"modified":"2019-04-04T06:21:44","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T04:21:44","slug":"i-will-contest-atupele-insists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/04\/04\/i-will-contest-atupele-insists\/","title":{"rendered":"I will contest\u2014Atupele insists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Rebecca Chimjeka:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>United Democratic Front (UDF) president, Atupele Muluzi, has insisted that he will still contest as a presidential candidate in May 21 elections.<\/p>\n<p>Muluzi, who is serving as Health Minister in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government, Wednesday denied reports that he was withdrawing from the race to pave the way for President Peter Mutharika.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cI am contesting as the UDF torch-bearer in the forthcoming elections. A lot has been said about my candidature, but I am insisting that I am contesting come what may,\u201d<\/em> Muluzi said in an interview after appearing before Public Affairs Committee (Pac) in Lilongwe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>During the meeting at Sunbird Capital, Pac had Muluzi and Mbakuwaku Movement for Development president, Peter Kuwani, sign a peace accord ahead of the elections.<\/p>\n<p>Asked whether the rumours concerning Muluzi\u2019s candidature would do him any harm, Chancellor College political analyst, Ernest Thindwa, said the UDF leader must be concerned.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe onus is on Muluzi to quash the rumours because they are not doing his cause any good as some voters can change his mind on voting for him,\u201d<\/em> Thindwa said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>After the meeting in Lilongwe, Pac spokesperson Father, Peter Mulomole, said the organisation has started engaging the candidates in line with the peace accord agreement.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cAs Pac, we believe that signing the peace accord would minimise conflicts between the contesting parties and abide by the election result announcement procedure. We believe that political leaders have a major role to play,\u201d<\/em> Mulomole said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Muluzi is among eight presidential candidates who will appear on the ballot box\u2014irrespective of whether one of them withdraws from the race or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rebecca Chimjeka: United Democratic Front (UDF) president, Atupele Muluzi, has insisted that he will still contest as a presidential candidate in May 21 elections. Muluzi, who is serving as Health Minister in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government, Wednesday denied reports that he was withdrawing from the race to pave the way for President [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":76342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76435","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\/76435","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=76435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76438,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76435\/revisions\/76438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}