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Malaŵi Congress Party

Political party

Last modified: 2018-09-12 by bruce berry
Keywords: malawi | mcp |
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image by Antonio Martins-Tuválkin, 14 Nov 2006 See also:

Malaŵi Congress Party (MCP) flag

The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) was the first ruling party in Malawi after independence and was presided over by Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda (founding president of Malawi). It is now the official opposition party in Malawi with about 1/3 of the representatives in the National Assembly of Malawi.  The MCP is presided over now by John Z.U. Thembo.

The flag of the MCP is three horizontal stripes of black, red and green, as found in the Malawi national flag, but without sun.  In the centre of the MCP flag is a white circle with a black rooster in the middle.
Santiago Tazon, 11 Nov 2001

It was reported in The Nation Malawi newspaper of 18 April 2004 that the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) was charged by the High Court in Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi, to stop using its flag . The banned flag was horizontally divided black-red-green and deemed too close to the national flag of Malawi. The case against the MCP was pleaded by Attorney General Peter Fachi.  In 1995, Fachi, then Minister of Justice, moved a motion in the National Assembly, then sitting in Zomba, the former capital of Malawi, to change the national flag as it looked like the MCP flag.  The motion was dropped out since the MCP changed its flag for a green flag with a black cock. However, the party reverted to the design deemed to close to the national flag and Fachi complained to the High Court. The MCP asked his partisans to stop using the flag until a further decision of the court. 

It is interesting to note that Clay Moss reports that the only MCP flag he saw during his stay in Malawi was indeed the controversial striped flag.
Ivan Sache, 22 Apr 2004
 

MCP flag - variants

[MCP flag without rooster] by Jarig Bakker, 16 Mar 2003

The Malawi Congress Party flag is a square horizontal tribar.  The top stripe is black, the middle stripe is red and the bottom stripe is green.  It's basically a square Malawian flag without the sun.
Clay Moss, 15 Mar 2003

There is a variant of the MCP flag which is just the stripes without the rooster.  In "Elseviers gids van vlaggen en wapens", by Whitney Smith (1981) [smi81d] it states:
"The Congress Party of Malawi adopted in 1953 a flag, identical to the present Malawi flag, but without the rising sun".
This would indeed suggest that the square flag mentioned by Clay Moss (above) preceded the version with the rooster.
Jarig Bakker, 16 Mar 2003

I have seen the illustration of the MPC flag with the rooster in the middle but have not seen an actual sample.  The entire time I lived in Malawi, I saw only the square tribar in public use.  The MPC flew it faithfully in front of all their local party offices.
Clay Moss, 16 Mar 2003

image by Antonio Martins-Tuválkin, 14 Nov 2006

According to the comment on the FOTW Malawi page, the Panafrican News Agency (PANA) (30 Dec 1998) stated that MCP changed its flag to an all green one (with the white circle and the rooster) in 1995/6. 
Santiago Tazon, 11 Nov 2001