Members of Parliament yesterday rejected the Electoral Commission [Amendment] Bill and referred it to the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament for cleaning but went ahead to pass the Referendum Bill without any amendment.
\nThe Referendum Bill was passed amid reservations from the opposition, which wanted some amendments to be made to the bill but their proposal did not go through as they lacked numerical strength in the chamber.
\nIf passed into law, the Referendum Bill would, among other things, give the electorate the powers of petitioning presidents to call for a referendum, as long as 500,000 registered voters sign the petition\u2014 effectively giving the masses a say.
\nWhile the amendment of the Electoral Commission was billed to entrench the independence of the Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec), alterations the government made to the bill gave the Executive more powers, which is different from the Special Law Commission\u2019s proposal and recommendations
\nThese new changes compelled the opposition to object to some provisions in the bill, opting to refer it to the Legal Affairs Committee for \u201ccleaning and refining\u201d.
\nResponding to the reading of the bill by Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Samuel Tembenu, Malawi Congress Party MP for Lilongwe North East, Maxwell Thyolera, who is also Legal Affairs Committee Chairperson, faulted the government for \u201craping\u201d the report by the Law Commission.
\n\u201cThe bill is aimed at enhancing operational efficiency of Mec. Instead, the DPP government is trying to get all the powers at the commission,\u201d Thyolera said.
\nSection 4 (1) states that, subject to section 75 (1) of the Constitution, the President shall, on the recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission, appoint a chairman of the Commission on such terms and conditions as the Chief Secretary to the Government shall determine Sub-section 2 of the same section states: \u201c\u2026the President shall appoint suitably qualified persons to be members of the Commission, on such terms and conditions as the Chief Secretary to the Government shall determine.\u201d
\nAccording to Thyolera, by putting the Chief Secretary to the Government as the determiner of the conditions, the independence of Mec is being compromised.
\nSpeaking on behalf of the People\u2019s Party, MP for Mzimba North, Agnes Nyalonje, also argued that the substance of the bill takes away the independence of the Electoral Commission.
\n\u201cFor credible and legitimate elections, there should be an independent body, but this is not what this bill is providing [for],\u201d Nyalonje said.
\nBut Tembenu defended the bill, arguing that most of the provisions that some MPs are not comfortable with are merely extensions of the Special Law Commission\u2019s proposals and that government is simply trying to formalise what has all along been happening.
\nHe argued that, for instance, Mec is seeking advice from the Chief Secretary to the Government when it comes to coming up with conditions for the appointment of commissioners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Members of Parliament yesterday rejected the Electoral Commission [Amendment] Bill and referred it to the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament for cleaning but went ahead to pass the Referendum Bill without any amendment. The Referendum Bill was passed amid reservations from the opposition, which wanted some amendments to be made to the bill but their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57629,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57624\/revisions\/57629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}