United Democratic Front (UDF) presidential aspirant Atupele Muluzi says leaders of this country are deliberately making the country poor so that people worship the leaders in return for food handouts.

Muluzi said this on Sunday a political meeting in Mulanje.

He said the country has vast resources to deal with the current challenges only that President Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera and his administration are not willing to use them, claiming the politicians in government want people to stay in perpetual poverty so that they turn to the ruling elite for begging.

"Our leaders are leaving the people in abject poverty deliberately so that the leaders should be splashing money to them during the campaign in the name of bailing them out of the poverty trap," said Muluzi.

He claimed the ruling party elite are swimming in money when the majority of Malawians are walloping in poverty.

He claimed the Chakwera administration has deliberately created the gap between the halves and halve nots for political reasons.

"If voted into power in 2025, UDF will not do this, we will dismantle this unequal sharing of the country's wealth," he said.

He said the UDF led government would want people to have money so that they stay independent of any political influence.