The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) convention, crucial to electing a presidential candidate and a possible running mate for next year\u2019s tripartite elections, is in limbo.<\/p>\n
This is because the High Court sitting in Blantyre Tuesday adjourned its ruling on whether to remove an injunction obtained by suspended vice-president Richard Msowoya\u2019s faction restraining the party President Lazarous Chakwera from holding the convention next month.<\/p>\n
MCP is scheduled to hold the convention in two weeks \u2013 April 4- 7 2018 at Mary Mount Secondary School in Mzuzu.<\/p>\n
But after the court\u2019s decision Tuesday to adjourn without giving a specific date for the ruling, acting party spokesman, Ezekiel Ching\u2019oma, said the party cannot commit fully to holding the convention unless subsequent court outcomes are in MCP\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter receiving both submissions the judge said he will deliver, his judgment on a later day but was not specific. So should he determine in our favour within this week, there is no reason to postpone the indaba, but if it\u2019s to the contrary, we will have no option but reschedule it,\u201d Ching\u2019oma said.<\/p>\n
Msowoya, who is also Speaker of Parliament, was suspended together with party Secretary General Gustave Kaliwo, his deputy James Chatonda Kaunda and Director of International Relations, Tony Kandeiro. Jessie Kambwila, who is Member of Parliament for Salima North-west, was expelled from the party.<\/p>\n
Kaliwo with lawyer Kelekeni Kaphale obtained a court order which stopped Chakwera, who is first defendant, and Ching\u2019oma, who is second defendant representing National Executive Committee (Nec) members stopping them from inviting the claimants to disciplinary inquiries and suspending them from convening a convention<\/p>\n
In his arguments in court yesterday, Kaphale said the stopping of Msowoya, Kaliwo, Kandiero, Chatonda Kaunda from their positions and Kabwila from the party was wrong arguing that the MCP Nec, which came up with the resolution, was attended by \u201cstrangers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kaphale argued that during the 2013 MCP convention, only six people were elected into the party\u2019s politburo.<\/p>\n
The four are the ones the party\u2019s politburo suspended.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo those who attended the January 2018 Nec meeting were strangers except for two, the president and Mr Lombola, for the record, there were between 53 and 54 people and therefore we question the legality of the resolutions which were made,\u201d Kaphale told the court<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also feel that the four were suspended without using rules of natural justice. The meeting by Nec on January did not have any agenda. We were told the agenda would be circulated at the meeting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But MCP lawyer Robert Nthewa said the 2013 convention gave the mandate to the current president to fill in the remaining positions in the Nec arguing the convention is the highest authority governing the party.<\/p>\n
He said the current Nec has powers to advance the objectives, of the party.<\/p>\n
Kaliwo, however, objected saying the convention does not give the president appointing powers on who should be in the party\u2019s highest committee but rather it is the constitution.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, MCP wants the injunction discharged because this is the fourth case in court talking about the party\u2019s politburo.<\/p>\n
Nthewa said the injunction affects all members of the party from solving the squabbles which are in the party.<\/p>\n
He further said the claimants were only suspended from Nec and not from the party and the convention would be the right channel for the four to claim their positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court should also consider the time factor\u2026 In the interest of justice, the injunction should be discharged considering that elections are just next year and convention is just around,\u201d the party lawyer told the court<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can renew their positions during the convention if nothing stands their way. If the claimants are really willing to make or see MCP in order, they would have used internal mechanism,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n
After submissions from both parties, Judge Jack Nriva, adjourned the case to a later date for determination.<\/p>\n
As Kaliwo and Kaphale moved out of the court premises, they were booed by MCP supporters who were chanting party songs outside the court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) convention, crucial to electing a presidential candidate and a possible running mate for next year\u2019s tripartite elections, is in limbo. This is because the High Court sitting in Blantyre Tuesday adjourned its ruling on whether to remove an injunction obtained by suspended vice-president Richard Msowoya\u2019s faction restraining the party President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63055","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\/63055","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=63055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63062,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63055\/revisions\/63062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}