The UTM has deployed equally heavy ammunition led by the formidable Gender Minister and UTM Secretary-General Patricia Kaliati aided by the late President Bingu wa Mutharika's widow Callista Mutharika and Mwenefumbo...
But Chilima a former Airtel executive suffers politically from association with President Bingu wa Mutharika's widow Callista Mutharika who came into the UTM along with other DPP defectors and is still unpopular because of the bloody demonstrations during Bingu's second term in which 21 people were shot dead...
His core team includes Mutharika's sister-in-law Callista Mutharika the widow of President Bingu wa Mutharika as well as Noel Masangwi and Louis Ngalande two former DPP senior officials named in a Commission of Inquiry report on the murder of student Robert Chasowa in 2011 (AC Vol 58 No 6 Mutharika's woes look terminal)...
At the same time Mutharika faces criticism for employing at State House seven personal advisors six press officers – and for giving a job to his brother's widow Callista Mutharika...
' First Lady Callista Mutharika was away so they called his brother Peter...