By Vincent Gunde
Karonga based rights activist Comrade Lytone Mangochi, has advised opposition parties DPP, AFORD and UTM to prepare themselves to go into campaign period without security to be provided for by the Malawi Police Service (MPS) and Malawi Defense Force (MDF) soldiers.
Mangochi said there have been a declaration of Lilongwe as a no-go zone for opposition parties and activists from holding demonstrations, panga wielding thugs hacking and terrorizing people in full view of police and MDF.
He said as pangas are speaking in the ears of Malawians, opposition party leaders and senior party members addressing campaign rallies are not safe advising them to beef up their security by not trusting anyone.
Speaking through a video clip, Mangochi has lamented that all those who hacked activist Sylvester Namiwa leaving him half-dead in Lilongwe have been left scot-free by Police beside their identities visibly seen that they are MCP youth operatives.
Mangochi has described the conduct of the Malawi Police service officers receiving orders from politicians as shame in a country of democracy observing that Malawi has a president who is just a pretender.
He said if Malawi had a President, he would have disciplined his youth operatives or arresting them to face the law but the country has a pretender who is being seen as behind supporting his youth operatives to continue terrorizing and hacking innocent people ahead of the 16th September, 2025 elections.
The activist has claimed that he has stopped listening and tuning in to President Chakwera’s speeches because he has found that in President Chakwera, there is no true love to his people, abuse of power and violence as being seen protecting panga wielding thugs from arrests.
He said in countries such as Uganda, Mozambique, Rwanda and Zimbabwe, ruling political parties send their thugs to be intimidating, threatening, hacking and terrorizing people observing that President Chakwera has borrowed a leaf from those countries forgetting that Malawi has matured democracy of 26 years old.
“If these political terrors were being organized and sponsored by some opposition party leaders, they would have all been arrested by today and languishing in the country’s prisons awaiting prosecutions in court of laws,” said Mangochi.
He has warned panga wielding thugs that time is coming when they will see that Lilongwe has become very big for them saying they are untouchable by the country’s laws today, tomorrow the very same laws will arrest them, assuring them that their families, children and relatives will be refugees in their own country for their actions.
