We are perturbed by the recent developments ahead of the April 27 planned demonstrations, particularly the nervousness displayed by the Democratic Progressive Party \u2013 (DPP) led administration.<\/p>\n
Every time the issue of demonstration comes up, the reaction from the DPP led government is usually that of apprehension, fearing the unknown.<\/p>\n
One minute the country\u2019s security agents are summoning the organisers of such, the next one somebody is trying to muzzle the press using the communications regulator.<\/p>\n
The government, no doubt working hand in hand with the ruling party, has stooped so low, to the extent of mobilising chiefs, most certainly using our tax money, to denounce the planned peaceful protests championed by civil society organisations.<\/p>\n
In their warped thinking, the protests should not proceed simply because there were no such demos when Cashgate unfolded in the country, really?<\/p>\n
Why are we all of a sudden seeing a wave of press briefings, and who exactly is bankrolling such errands?<\/p>\n
We are baffled by the action of these traditional leaders, who are supposed to be custodians of tradition, the mirror of society and are supposed to put the welfare of their subjects first.<\/p>\n
Are they telling us that they do not share the frustrations of Malawians over the constant electricity blackouts, thriving corruption and the planned distribution of K 4 Billion by the Treasury and Local Government ministries, which was only peddled in Parliament as a farce after the public reacted angrily to the unsanctioned spending targeting 86 legislators?<\/p>\n
The Republican Constitution of Malawi clearly guarantees freedom of assembly and Malawians have over the years shown their maturity by holding peaceful protests, save for the time when some trigger happy police officers decided to kill innocent lives during the demonstrations of July 20, 2011.<\/p>\n
It is therefore absurd for anyone to think they can discourage Malawians from exercising such a right as enshrined in the Constitution.<\/p>\n
No amount of intimidation antics should be allowed to stand in the way of well meaning citizens who want to put their point across that they are not happy with all the challenges rocking the Malawi nation.<\/p>\n
Somebody should tell this government and the DPP that trampling upon the rights of the people can have serious consequences, particularly now as we inch closer towards the May 2019 elections.<\/p>\n
Let the people have their protest march.<\/p>\n
All the nervousness displayed by those on the governing side is really unwarranted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We are perturbed by the recent developments ahead of the April 27 planned demonstrations, particularly the nervousness displayed by the Democratic Progressive Party \u2013 (DPP) led administration. Every time the issue of demonstration comes up, the reaction from the DPP led government is usually that of apprehension, fearing the unknown. One minute the country\u2019s security […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64250","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\/64250","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=64250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64253,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64250\/revisions\/64253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}