Last modified: 2008-07-26 by bruce berry
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image by Antonio Martins-Tuválkin, 14
Nov 2006
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The Malaŵi Congress Party (MCP) was the first ruling party in Malaŵi after independence and was presided over by Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda (founding president of Malaŵi). It is now the official opposition party in Malaŵi with about 1/3 of the representatives in the National Assembly of Malaŵi. 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 Malaŵi 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 Malaŵi newspaper of 18
April 2004 that the Malaŵi Congress Party (MCP) was charged by the High Court in Lilongwe, the capital city
of Malaŵi, to stop using its flag . The banned flag was horizontally divided black-red-green and deemed too close to the national flag of
Malaŵi.
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 Malaŵi, 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
Malaŵi was indeed the controversial striped flag.
Ivan Sache, 22 Apr 2004
![[MCP flag without rooster]](../images/m/mw}mcp1.gif)
by Jarig Bakker, 16 Mar 2003
The Malaŵi
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 Malaŵian 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 Malaŵi adopted in 1953 a flag, identical to
the present Malaŵi 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 Malaŵi, 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
Malaŵi 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