STORY: Malawi inaugurates new Vice President Michael Usi
SHOOTING TIME: June 21, 2024
DATELINE: June 23, 2024
LENGTH: 00:01:24
LOCATION: Lilongwe
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of inauguration ceremony
2. SOUNDBITE (English): MICHAEL USI, Vice president of Malawi
3. various of inauguration ceremony

STORYLINE:

Malawi on Friday inaugurated new Vice President Michael Usi after President Lazarus Chakwera appointed him Thursday to replace Saulos Chilima who died in a plane crash on June 10, creating a vacancy in the office of the Vice President.

Usi, 56, took the oath of office in the Parliament Building Chamber in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, in front of President Chakwera, the Speaker of Parliament, members of Parliament, Judges and heads of foreign missions, among others.

The new vice president pledged commitment to serving Malawians by helping the president find solutions to the challenges facing Malawians.

"I accept the challenge and I'll work hard to make Malawians happy: I'll spend more time thinking about Malawians than thinking about myself," said Usi in his acceptance speech.

The new vice president described his predecessor as a leader "whose shoes were too big to fill" and that he (Chilima) always had the welfare of Malawians at heart.

SOUNDBITE (English): MICHAEL USI, Vice president of Malawi
"We will take this tragedy as a teaching and sobering moment for us to do better, for us to work harder, and for us to serve you more diligently. We can not do otherwise because the alternative to moving forward into the brighter future we are creating is a return to a darker past that we cannot accept. I pledge to you nothing but sacrificial service to our country, its citizens, and its flag, for that is also the best way to honor the memory of Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima."

Usi joined mainstream politics when the late Chilima, who was president of the United Transformation Movement (UTM), handpicked him as vice president and running mate in the 2019 elections before the UTM entered into a winning alliance with the Malawi Congress Party in the 2020 presidential rerun poll.

Before being appointed Vice President Thursday, Usi was the country's Minister of Natural Resources and Climate Change and, before that, he also served as Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Wildlife.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Lilongwe.
(XHTV)