BY STEVE MALOYA
Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Member of Parliament for Blantyre South, Noel Lipipa, has revealed that his friends working in the judiciary are coercing him to dump his party and join one of the ruling Tonse Alliance partners, UTM party.
Revealing this through his Facebook post, Lipipa posted that six of his friends who sit on the Malawi bench have been telling him that he is stupid for being in DPP.
He says that they have been telling him ‘for the longest time’.
While calling them his friends with whom he socialises at the Moth Club in Blantyre city, Lipipa indicated that his choice of remaining in DPP has been met with mockery from members of the bench.
“My friends, including the 6 judges, have always said that I am stupid because I support DPP,” posted Lipipa.
He then went on to disclose that among those that have been calling for him to leave the DPP is retired justice Twea.
While not indicating that he will be joining the UTM, Lipipa has confessed that his friends and the members of the bench are right as the DPP is increasingly losing popularity.
“We are losing our popularity, I think they have a point (that he should leave DPP and join UTM),” posted Lipipa.
The DPP is in the middle of an internal fight which has seen party President Peter Mutharika going on a showdown with his former cabinet minister who is also the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Kondwani Nankhumwa, over the leadership of the party.
Mutharika, meanwhile has always been maintaining that the judiciary orchestrated a coup that saw him lose power.
His arguments were buttressed at the end of last year by an academic article by legal minds which highlighted murky areas in the ruling that paved way for fresh elections which saw the ousting of Mutharika
