Alliance for Democracy (Aford) president, Enock Chihana, was a relieved man on Friday after the High Court in Lilongwe nullified an order that stopped him from executing duties as the party\u2019s president.
\nThe court ruling follows an order that Dan Msowoya, Christopher Ritchie, Owen Mumba, Ernest Kanyanya obtained about two weeks ago, restraining Chihana from acting as Aford president due to the expiry of his tenure on September 8, 2017.
\nIn his ruling, High Court Judge, Charles Mkandawire, told the warring parties to go for a roundtable discussion and agree on dates for convention.
\nMkandawire said the party\u2019s national governing council should meet on December 27 to agree on when to hold the national conference or convention.
\nHe ordered Chihana to summon the meeting.
\nMkandawire also ordered Chihana to undertake full responsibility of ensuring the security of every party official and member.
\nThe judge warned that breaching the terms shall constitute contempt of court.
\nHe also said the court cannot decide the day of convention as it is not the responsibility of court to run parties.
\n\u201cPolitical parties are run by their executive councils whose head is president, hence the court is reinstating the party president in his position,\u201d Mkandawire said.
\nAford lawyer Gilbert Khonyongwa told the court that there was no way the court could stop Chihana who was elected on the same day as other council members.
\nKhonyongwa argued that stopping the president was meant to create a vacuum in the political party.
\nIn an interview on Friday, Chihana welcomed the court ruling saying he will be calling for a meeting over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
\n\u201cI sincerely appreciate the court decision and I am ready to follow the court decision,\u201d Chihana said.
\nThe battle for leadership in Aford started when Member of Parliament for Karonga Central Frank Mwenefumbo declared his interest to contest for the party presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alliance for Democracy (Aford) president, Enock Chihana, was a relieved man on Friday after the High Court in Lilongwe nullified an order that stopped him from executing duties as the party\u2019s president. The court ruling follows an order that Dan Msowoya, Christopher Ritchie, Owen Mumba, Ernest Kanyanya obtained about two weeks ago, restraining Chihana from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":45488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58009","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\/58009","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=58009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58020,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58009\/revisions\/58020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}