From Daniel Phiri to delusion. A party in panic. A party at war with itself. A president and a candudate too frail to lead or even campaign. The old ghosts now returning.
It is apparent that Daniel Phiri of 2012 never really died. He mutated into a culture of perpetual greed. Into a system where power is hoarded, not earned. Where alliances are traps and leadership is auctioned off to the highest bidder.
It would be an understatement to suggest that the DPP is collapsing, all under the weight of its own arrogance. Arthur Peter Mutharika remains a shadow while Vice President for the center Alfred Gangata wants the second seat.
The results: UDF is enraged. AFORD is disgusted. It seems it is only the UTM now watching and salivating to get the dead meat when time is ripe.
And Malawians? They watch, bewildered. History is repeating itself. The question is: will the DPP learn before it’s too late?
April 5, 2012, a macabre political drama unfolded on the stage of Malawi’s governance. Then-President Bingu wa Mutharika lay lifeless in the presidential palace in Lilongwe.
His sudden death from cardiac arrest should have triggered an orderly, constitutional transition of power to then-Vice President Joyce Banda.
Instead, what followed was a desperate, morally bankrupt attempt by a handful of DPP top brass, infamously dubbed the “Midnight Six”, to hijack the presidency.
Bingu’s dead and cold body was hurriedly flown to South Africa under a false name, Daniel Phiri, in a grotesque charade designed to buy time and force a new leadership arrangement that would bypass Joyce Banda. For two harrowing days, the nation was lied to, while power brokers tried to cobble together an unconstitutional succession plan.
It failed, spectacularly. But the stain it left on the DPP’s record has never been erased.
To date, the actual date of Bingu’s passing is not known. Some history books put it as April 5 while locally we are still made to believe that the late President died on April 6, when the Malawi Government under DPP made an official announcement.
Fast forward to 2025, and the ghosts of Daniel Phiri are stirring again. This time, it is not a corpse being smuggled under false pretenses, but political power itself. And once again, the DPP is grasping for air, but still unrepentant and dangerously arrogant.
It is clear that the current electoral alliance drama in Malawi’s opposition politics is not just about strategy, it’s about the DPP’s inherent pathological need to control by all means. Having failed to win the public’s confidence with democratic merit, the party has resorted to familiar tactics—dominate and destroy.
Acting in fear, almost all opposition parties (interestingly including the DPP itself) are calling for unity among opposition parties ahead of the September 2025 elections. Not so surprising though, the DPP has made it abundantly clear that it wants it all, the presidency, the vice presidency, and the lion’s share of the spoils.
This is not a coalition, it’s a colonization attempt.
Atupele Muluzi, leader of the United Democratic Front (UDF), has not minced words when he declared the DPP as “selfish and greedy,” saying the party’s rigid, take-it-all approach has “derailed all hope of an alliance.” Similarly, AFORD president Enoch Chihana decried DPP’s unrealistic, arrogant demands, and the monopolistic attitude.
All what is left is the UTM which is hanging only on hope. The DPP makes a blunder to appoint Dr. Dalitso Kabambe as running mate pairing him with the old frail APM. God forbid, DPP wins but APM does not finish his term and voila Kabambe is made president.
Or Dr. Kabambe is made to lead the alliance with Alfred Gangata as running mate. Very unlikely winning combination as this could only confirm the fears that Dr. Kabambe was sent by the DPP to come over and bring back UTM into the Lhomwe belt fold.
And will DPP officials and supporters buy such an arrangement wholeheartedly?
The DPP’s alliance posture is rooted in deep political trauma. The party still bears scars from 2012 when it lost power after Joyce Banda ascended to the presidency following Bingu’s death. That event, though entirely legal and constitutional, was seen by many in DPP ranks as a betrayal.
Since then, the party has developed a phobia of sharing power, especially the vice presidency. It fears that, should its elderly leader now 87 win the election and become incapacitated, the vice president, particularly one from another party, could “steal” the presidency.
Ironically, it was the DPP that once benefited from this very scenario. In 2004, Bakili Muluzi anointed Bingu wa Mutharika as UDF’s presidential candidate. But once in power, Bingu broke away to form the DPP, effectively robbing the UDF of its ruling position.
That act of political piracy now haunts the DPP like a guilty conscience, but instead of learning humility, the party has turned paranoid and possessive.
The Gangata Dilemma
Further exacerbating the situation is the rumored selection of businessman Alfred Gangata as Mutharika’s running mate. Gangata, a deep-pocketed benefactor of the DPP, is reportedly being fronted not for his political acumen, but for his wallet.
According to insiders, Gangata has bankrolled party operations and expects a vice presidency as compensation.
His name is reportedly being championed by sections of the DPP’s media and strategic teams, raising serious questions about how far the party is willing to prostitute the nation’s second-highest office for campaign financing.
The Gangata project is spearheaded by none other than the “Ntcheu Cabal” comprising of Norman “Pythius Hiwa” Chisale and his hand clappers the former First Lady Gertrude Maseko Muthrika and the former Police Chief and now party Secretary General Peter Mukhito.
This commodification of leadership is emblematic of DPP’s approach: politics as transaction, not transformation.
What’s most disturbing and disgusting to onlookers in all of this is the naked fight over the “national cake” before elections are even won. Rather than focus on persuading Malawians with visionary policies or credible leadership, the DPP and its cohorts are squabbling over positions, appointments, and access to power.
Malawians are watching with disbelief as the DPP greedly position itself for a repeat of state plunder.
One popular Facebook commentator captured the mood succinctly: “Kwachuluka ulukhu uku, kuzolowera kulimbirana nyama musanaphe” (In the DPP camp, greed is rampant, they’re used to fighting over a meal they haven’t earned yet).
The central question now is this: Can a party that refuses to share leadership ever work in the interest of Malawians? The answer, sadly, is no.
DPP’s strategy seems more about using smaller parties as stepping stones back to power. Once they’ve served their purpose, they will be discarded, just as Joyce Banda was nearly discarded in 2012, just as Bakili Muluzi was blindsided by Bingu in 2005.
The DPP’s current behavior shows that “Daniel Phiri” was not a blunder of the moment, but a defining symbol of a political philosophy, a belief that power must be grabbed, hoarded, and protected at all costs, even at the expense of democracy.
If the opposition is serious, it must rescue itself from the toxic culture of entitlement and greed. That begins with the DPP taking a long, hard look in the mirror, and stepping back from the ledge of self-destruction.
Malawi deserves leaders who can build coalitions, not castles. It needs statesmen, not scavengers. And above all, it needs to bury Daniel Phiri once and for all, not in secret, not under false names, but in full daylight. With honesty, humility, and healing.
