Blantyre, Malawi - In a move seen as being groomed for the top job, the Malawi President's younger brother and Foreign Minister, Peter, will address the United Nations General  Assembly this week. Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Kondwani Nankhumwa, said in a statement, faxed from New York Sunday, that Prof. Peter Arthur Mutharika, whom President Bingu wa  Mutharika appointed as Foreign Affairs minister in the recent cabinet shake up, is leading a 12-man Malawi delegation to the UN General Assembly.

'Prof. Mutharika will address the United Nations General Assembly later this week,' he said.

Apart from addressing the world via the UN lectern, Nankhumwa said Mutharika would also hold talks with bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors on behalf of the Malawi Government.

Mutharika, 72, is being positioned to succeed his elder brother as president when the 77-year-old economist-turned-politician retires from the presidency at the completion of his two five-year terms in 2014.

Some sections in the ruling Democratic progressive Party (DPP) started campaigning for the Washington State University Constitutional Law professor soon after President Mutharika won with a landslide in the 2009 general elections.

But the pitching of Prof. Mutharika's name in the succession plans has split the ruling party with some senior leaders grumbling whether the presidency is a dynasty that must follow a certain lineage.

Vice-President Joyce Banda, who was also DPP First Vice-President, and her deputy Khumbo Kachali, were expelled from the ruling party after refusing to endorse the younger Mutharika. The two have since formed their own People's Party (PP) although Banda remains state Vice-President since she can only be fired by Parliament through impeachment.

Former Justice Minister Henry Dama Phoya was also expelled from the party for similar reasons.

Reports indicate that over 40 of the DPP 140 MPs are aligning themselves to Banda's PP with a similar figure rallying behind Phoya who has not yet announced his next political move.

To confirm the growing disaffection within the DPP with the succession plan, more and more DPP MPs in the 193-member Parliament have come out to condemn the lack of democracy in the DPP.

Just last week, the DPP-dominated parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee failed to block Phoya from retaining its chairmanship
but the ruling party had to cause a deferral.

But the second try also confirmed more MPs were for Phoya's leadership causing the DPP to cause a complete
abandonment of the whole process to re-strategise.

Meanwhile, Peter Mutharika has come to the Foreign Affairs ministry at a dicey time. As Malawi's chief diplomat, the younger Mutharika has to win back confidence among the Western donor nations who are abandoning the southern African country in droves because of bad political and economic governance.

Malawi's former colonial masters and largest aid donor, Great Britain, withdrew all budgetary support to the Malawi Government after its envoy to Lilongwe, Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, was declared persona non grata when he described President Mutharika as 'increasingly becoming autocratic and intolerant of criticism' in a leaked diplomatic cable to Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Germany also reduced aid to Malawi over similar concerns as did the Norway and the Flanders International Cooperation of Belgium.

Similarly the government of Japan, France, Ireland and Iceland have also condemned Malawi's bad governance record.

The European Union, the World Bank and the International Monitory Fund (IMF) have also withheld their programmes for Malawi while the US Government had to put on ice US$ 350.7 million Millennium Challenge Account money meant to revitalise Malawi's decaying energy sector after police killed 20 unarmed protestors during the unprecedented July 20 anti-government demonstrations.

Pana 19/09/2011