Written by Phoebe Kachala
The post-election drama we have seen is not about democracy or poor governance as the opposition and their operatives claim.
It is not about any civilized explanations that they are giving.
Read through the illogicality and illegitimacy of their actions, read through their refusal to be civilized in their conduct, read through their uncensored manner of speaking and how they go about disrespecting and abusing anyone who differs with them — you will see the real motive of all this.
It is a conspiracy of those who have decided to be hateful of the DPP and President Peter Mutharika for no proper reasons at all.
It is an evil plot to achieve nothing else but remove DPP and Mutharika from power, by hook or crook.
It is a conspiracy by those who are tired of losing elections and those who feel they are entitled to hold power even when they lose elections.
This is the underlying motive.
Under Mutharika, Malawi has not performed any badly in any respect for anyone to find credible reasons to plot to remove the Government. The world knows this. Everyone Malawian knows this – in their heart of hearts.
Everyone knows that Mutharika has not behaved in anyway warranting any sinister plot against him.
The May 2019 election result case has been used by the opposition as a smokescreen in the implementation of their sinister plot to remove DPP from power.
It is generally accepted that there were irregularities in the election. This is a fact. Yet no one seems willing to acknowledge that this election had much more strengths than weaknesses, that it was better managed than the previous elections.
At the heart of the jazz we see is the Presidential result itself – the ultimate prize.
No one — not the court, not the petitioners in the election case, not anyone anywhere — has proven that Mutharika rigged to victory, that he benefited from any irregularity of the election process, that those who lost did so because of any of those irregularities, that the will of the people was not respected.
Everyone agrees that none of these things happened, that Mutharika’s victory was clean and deserved.
And yet, Malawi is engulfed in tension today not for any other reason but a craving for the pinnacle of power by those who lost.
Whatever good language they will be veiled in, all the court battles and the Parliament shenanigans we see are all about to snatch the Presidency which Mutharika earned legitimately.
This is the motivation.
That is, the DPP is facing a plot to rob it of a victory in the elections last year. It is not a victory thrust upon it. It is not a victory stolen. It is a victory earned.
This is the truth. Those that are plotting know this truth. The world knows it.
In that case, DPP has every reason to defend its legitimate victory. It has no apologies to make for winning legitimately. People voted for it. The party is in power today because people willed it.
There is no greater motivation to get to work than knowing that some people want to rob you off a victory you justifiably earned.
What DPP needs now is for every member of the party to know that they are facing a daylight robbery of their legitimate power.
That they need to defend what they earned with their sweat and truthfully.
That every DPP member needs to cast away their personal political ambitions, misgivings and opportunistic intentions and massively pull in one direction — with their resources and their energy — to protect their legitimate victory from being robbed.
Or posterity will judge them harshly for failing to defend democracy by giving away a properly earned prize to vultures.
Further to that, they also dictated to parliament that it needs to change the constitutional provisions to give effect to the already compromised judgement.
National Assembly Speaker, MCP MP Gotani rushed to hold a press conference a day after the judgement – citing that she will table the motion to change the laws in parliament. She did this knowing very well that the judgement was taken on an appeal by the defendants, MEC, DPP, and President Mutharika.
Why was Gotani in a hurry to change the laws, knowing very well that the judicial processes are not yet concluded?
The rush by the MCP is because they are trying to rape the constitution to give effect to the unjust judgement that is still going on appeal. But that is not the bigger problem.
The big problem is that constitutional change or amendment is huge. Section 67 and Section 80 of the constitution have to be changed completely. Therefore, before the amendment bill is tabled in parliament, the MPs need to consult their constituencies.
The MCP refused to allow any consultative process. They are rushing the changes at lightning speed. A day before the amendments vote, the Burundian terrorist invaded parliament, threatening the DPP MPs, saying that they will deal with any MP who is going to oppose the bill.
Changing a constitution is a very complex process with a lot of provisions. MCP bulldozed through all those provisions to force the matter to go for a vote. That is tantamount to raping the constitution.
Sad for the MCP, and safe for Malawians, the motion to amend the constitution was defeated. They could not get the two-thirds majority to make the amendments.
Seeing that it is impossible to get two-thirds, the MCP then wanted an amendment of the constitutional provision that requires a two-third majority for a constitutional amendment. But they are running around in circles. To change that provision about the two-third, you need a two-third first.
Seeing this abuse of parliamentary process, DPP MPs left the National Assembly before any tabling of the motions that seek to undermine the constitution.
As it stands, there is no law that states that courts can instruct Parliaments on what laws to pass, or what laws parliament must pass.
The judgement delivered on the 21st of February in Lilongwe High on the case of Peter Bvalani and Jessie Kabwila vs Electoral Commission and others is telling.
In rejecting the application by Kabwila for nullification of the MP results, Judge Mkandawire states – “I am aware that the Constitutional Court is at the level of the High Court and therefore its decisions are not binding on me.”
If the Constitutional court is at the level of a High Court, and the decisions are not binding on a sitting judge, as Mkandawire says, why must the decision be binding to the lawmakers?
History has no blank pages. The DPP will go down in history as a party that defended the constitution, while MCP tried to rape it.
The author is very much ignorant on the supremacy of the law and I might as well say he/she is from the blue camp.