Malawi church takes parliament to task as workers down tools

One of the country’s churches Evangelical Church of Malawi (ECM) started holding a vigil at the Parliament aiming at forcing the Speaker of the National Assembly to declare seats of some Members of Parliament vacant.

The MPs, most of them elected on late President Bingu wa Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party ticket, dumped it and joined Joyce Banda’s Peoples Party following the ascending of the latter to power.

They violated Section 65 of Malawi’s constitution.

The section restricts MP’s elected under one political party that is represented in parliament from joining join another party which is also represented in the august House.

The Church said holding a vigil was one of the fifteen measures devised to force the Speaker of the National assembly to evoke the controversial section.

“We will move to the Constitutional court to challenge any injunction that would the stop the speaker to evoke the section,” said the church in a press release.

The MPs defected to Joyce Banda’s People’s Party giving her the needed majority in parliament. If the speaker evokes the section, then the ruling party will not have a majority.