BY ALICK PONJE:
Malawi Congress Party (MCP) leader, Lazarus Chakwera, has called for the resignation of President Peter Mutharika and early elections following the President’s implication in transactions regarding a Malawi Police Service (MPS) contract with Pioneer Investments.
A leaked investigation report by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) mentioned Mutharika as a beneficiary of what could be proceeds of fraud after an account that has him as a sole signatory received K145 million from Zameer Karim, owner of Pioneer Investments.
The businessperson had a contract with MPS to supply food rations and ACB suspects that there was fraud in the execution of the contract.
But Presidential Press Secretary, Mgeme Kalilani, insists that his boss’ hands are clean and that the said money was a donation to governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Earlier, Kalilani had rubbished the leaked document as the work of some politician who was apparently bent on tainting the President’s image. But ACB later owned the document albeit regretting that the leakage had happened before investigations were concluded.
Addressing the press in Lilongwe yesterday, Chakwera said Malawians’ inaction and lack of resolve “to stop Mutharika and his cronies from dragging Malawi on the path of more misery coupled with the indifference to the carnage have given the President the temerity to continue his vices with humongous impunity”.
He added that Malawians have given legitimacy to fraud and corruption by such lack of resolve.
“The affairs of our State and the future of this nation can no longer be in the hands of a man who has shown us enough to know that he cannot be trusted to fulfil his duties as the national pathfinder, as the conscience and moral campus that must animate the conduct of State affairs.
“Mr Mutharika has clearly fallen short of the minimum foundational standards of our State. He should not continue to lead this country… Having been enraged on my own behalf and on behalf of all Malawians… we do hereby demand that Mutharika and his entire administration resign with immediate effect having lost the trust of the people of Malawi,” Chakwera said.
He added that having resigned, Mutharika should call for early elections.
Chakwera, who is also Leader of Opposition, also pointed out that the opposition and “our gallant media” have previously severally and tirelessly raised issues concerning “the nauseating and paralysing corruption and pilferage of public resources by President Mutharika’s government”.
“We have fervently endeavoured to alert the nation that this whole malaise is inspired and animated by none other than President Mutharika himself through his apathetic approach to these prowling vices,” he said and went further to describe the President as “a prince, if not, a king of thieves”.
He also warned that the present revelations are only a tip of the iceberg.
Asked what the opposition will do if Mutharika does not voluntarily resign and call for early elections and whether impeachment is possible, Chakwera admitted that there are hurdles along that path.
He said: “Our laws say a president can be impeached when he breaks the law. Our laws also say Parliament is summoned by the President in consultation with the Speaker. Will the President call for a Parliament that will impeach him?”
The MCP leader indicated that they might pursue other options which he did not disclose, however.
But the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College-based political analyst, Ernest Thindwa, has downplayed the call for Mutharika’s resignation on the premise that in Malawi, the Executive wields too much power in relation to the Judiciary and the Legislature and that citizens are too passive to force any leader to step down.
“Politically, it is not feasible. The only way a president can resign is where the masses put pressure on [him] and flock to the streets without relenting. That has happened elsewhere including Brazil, Ethiopia and South Korea,” he said.
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