Woe unto the stiff-necked

THE government seems to have made up its mind that it will not bring the Electoral Reforms Amendment Bills to Parliament. Since the current meeting started, the government has been playing crook and shifting from one excuse to another.
Clearly, Malawians have made it known that they are in support of the much-needed bills. The Catholic Church has urged its flock to participate in the national protests scheduled for December 13. Recently, the Malawi Council of Churches and the Nkhoma Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian have also made a raring call to their members to participate in this grand march towards electoral sanity.
Yesterday, main opposition party, Malawi Congress Party’s Members of Parliament, tired of the government’s delaying tactics, chose to boycott Parliament in a move to press the government to table the bills.
This, to every analytical person, shows how important these bills are to the nation. But what is shocking is the recalcitrance of the Democratic Progressive Party-led government.
The resolve of government not to table the bills clearly shows that there is something fishy and that the ruling party will do everything—even against the will of Malawians—to shoot down bills that, if passed into law, will solve a larger part of our electoral problems.
But this only shows that we do not have a listening government. Those in power today must not live with the illusion that they will remain in power forever. The bills that Malawians are agitating to be tabled are for all Malawians and we cannot tell who will need them tomorrow.
The people have spoken and it is obvious that well-meaning Malawians need those bills to be tabled. Government might choose to ignore the growing calls of Malawians but this might even be the beginning of its end. Unnecessary adamancy belongs to archaic days and not in a democratic dispensation.
If at all it cares, the government can as well borrow an ecclesiastical warning that “If you get more stubborn every time you are corrected, one day you will be crushed and never recover”.