The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is being torn apart by a bitter internal war over who truly launched President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika's "Ayimanso Project" -- the controversial campaign to return him to the presidency after his 2020 court-sanctioned defeat.
What began as a grassroots digital movement has now become a toxic power struggle, exposing deep fault lines inside Malawi's former ruling party.
According to insiders who were present when the party was at its lowest ebb, the Ayimanso campaign was not born in boardrooms or party headquarters -- it was born on social media, when most DPP elites had gone silent after the humiliating 2020 loss to President Dr Lazarus Chakwera.
The earliest and most consistent voices pushing for Mutharika's return were:
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Leonard Chimbanga
Emmanuel Matewere (Nthambi)
Hon. Shadreck Namalomba
Brandon Nandolo (Chimangeni Mapiko)
These figures, operating when DPP was politically toxic, kept the fire burning for a comeback that many in the party were too afraid to openly support.
At the time, Mutharika himself had publicly stated he was retiring from active politics. The idea of him running again was widely seen as unrealistic, even embarrassing. But this small group refused to let the idea die.
They posted relentlessly.
They mobilised online.
They kept the conversation alive when the party elite hid.
Fast-forward to today: with Mutharika's return now politically viable, Honourable Chimwenwe Chipungu has emerged claiming that he was the architect of the Ayimanso Project.
That claim has detonated inside DPP like a bomb.
Party loyalists who fought when it was politically dangerous are furious that someone who was silent during the storm now wants to wear the crown.
To them, Chipungu is not a pioneer -- he is a latecomer trying to hijack a movement he did not build.
"The clouds are now clear. That's why people are coming out now," said one senior DPP insider.
"But when it was risky, when supporting Mutharika was political suicide, Chipungu was nowhere."
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At the centre of this storm stands Honourable Shadreck Namalomba, one of the very few DPP figures who publicly stood with Mutharika when doing so invited political punishment.
He paid the price.
Namalomba was embarrassingly fired as Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) -- widely seen as punishment for his loyalty to Mutharika at a time when the party was under siege.
While others hid in comfort zones, Namalomba took the political bullets.
That is why many within the party see current attempts to erase his role as not just dishonest -- but insulting.
The Ayimanso Project was supposed to unite the DPP around a single mission: returning Mutharika to Kamuzu Palace.
Instead, it has become a battlefield of egos, credit-grabbing, and historical revisionism.
Those who built the movement when it was unpopular now feel betrayed by those who are rushing in now that power is within reach.
This is not just a fight over who posted first on Facebook.
It is a fight over who owns the future of DPP.
And if the party cannot even agree on who started its most important political revival, one thing is clear:
The DPP may be marching toward 2025 -- but it is doing so deeply divided, bitter, and dangerously at war with itself.
