The UTM Party says part of its 2 million registered members voted for President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika, while others were underage and ineligible to vote, factors it believes contributed to its loss in the presidential election.

Speaking to Zodiak Online UTM spokesperson Felix Njawala said that despite having over 2 million registered members, some chose to vote for Mutharika to prevent a runoff, as they did not want the MCP to remain in government.

“Our findings show that some of our members believed the only way to avoid a rerun was to vote for Mutharika because they didn’t want an MCP government,” Njawala explained.

He added that the party has now registered more than 2 million members through its membership card initiative.

However, governance and political analyst Dr. George Chaima dismissed the party’s reasoning as “an irrelevant excuse,” saying UTM had misjudged the situation.

“How could the party rely on those figures? Didn’t they know that some members were underage? And as for their members voting for Mutharika, that was obvious, Malawians had trust in him,” said Chaima.