Karonga Nyungwe political Feud: Character assassination sparks controversy with rivals

A fierce fight over character assassination has emerged between the main competitors in the September parliamentary election for the Karonga Nyungwe constituency. Political analysts are warning authorities to critically analyze the events leading to a tug of war between the candidates before taking action. This development follows assassination claims made by the constituency’s UTM incumbent parliamentarian, Keneth Ndovie, who is serving his second term, against his neck-and-neck competitor, Wilson Mavwanya Sichali of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Ndovie won by a narrow margin of 463 votes in a highly competitive race against Sichali, who was contesting for the first time. At the center of the controversy, Ndovie is calling for the police to arrest his competitor on allegations that Sichali intended to assassinate him in order to reclaim the MP’s seat through a by-election—claims that Sichali has dismissed as laughable. Speaking to the media in Karonga, Sichali expressed amusement upon receiving calls from senior police officials at both the police headquarters in Lilongwe and the Northern Regional Police Headquarters asking him if he had knowledge of the purported warrant for his arrest.

He stated that the narrative of the assassination operation itself is also absurd, considering how assassins typically conduct their operations. “It is not my principle to discuss media propaganda against me, even during the past election period, but this matter has truly tested my patience due to the serious criminal accusations involved. “To begin with, Ndovie is my brother, and we are both sons of the soil of Nyungwe constituency.

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Political differences should not divide us but rather unite us to share visions and strategies for the socio-economic transformation and development of our constituency,” he said. Sichali revealed that the root of the contention between him and Ndovie stems from the return of the DPP to power—a party that Ndovie abandoned for UTM after the Tonse Alliance won the 2020 elections. “This is the background of the issue: he left the DPP, where President Mutharika appointed him Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, and joined UTM as soon as the Tonse Alliance took over the government because he never anticipated that Mutharika would regain power.

“Now that the DPP is back in power, he is employing various tactics to return to the party, and one of them is the assassination plot accusations, which aim to tarnish my image and destroy my political career, which is very troubling,” he explained. In response to a media question about why he laughed upon hearing the allegation, Sichali stated there is no way the police would ignore a case involving the assassination of a sitting parliamentarian if the claims were credible.

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