Government has disclosed that it will today (Monday) circulate the controversial fifty plus one electoral reform bill to the August house.<\/p>\n
Leader of the House, Kondwani Nankhumwa said this on Sunday saying that the Cabinet finalised the scrutiny of the proposed laws on Friday last week.<\/p>\n
Nankhumwa, who is also Minister of Local Government and Rural Development denied rumours that the decision followed the pressure by the Public Affairs Committee (PAC).<\/p>\n
“We are circulating the 50-plus-one Bill and the remaining Bills on Monday. However this is not because of the PAC or public pressure,” said Nankhumwa.<\/p>\n
Minister of Justice Samuel Tembenu earlier told some reporters that the executive will not bring the bill to the Parliament as it is still under scrutiny.<\/p>\n
He said as government, they will not work under PAC pressure and that they are not afraid of their plan to hold demonstration as that is part of exercising their constitutional rights.<\/p>\n
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been against the bill and it is alleged to have bought number of legislatures from opposition side to vote against it.<\/p>\n
Leader of opposition Lazarus Chakwera reaffirmed his party\u2019s commitment to have the proposed electoral reforms bill deliberated upon and passed during the current sitting of Parliament.<\/p>\n
He said the proposed bills if enacted predetermine a good future for the country which is currently faced with huge economic and social challenges.<\/p>\n
Chakwera also called for an extension for the current sitting of Parliament so that members of Parliament truthfully serve their constituents through deliberation of the bills.<\/p>\n
Minister of Civic Education, Culture and Community Development Grace Chiumia is on record saying President Peter Mutharika\u2019s administration is not in support of the proposed electoral reforms, especially the proposal to above the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a rerun in the presidential election.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, different religious group, civil society organizations and two public Universities, Mzuni and Chanco have pledged to support the 13th December, 2017 PAC demonstration.<\/p>\n
The demonstration is against Parliament failure to table the bill in the current sitting of Parliament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Government has disclosed that it will today (Monday) circulate the controversial fifty plus one electoral reform bill to the August house. Leader of the House, Kondwani Nankhumwa said this on Sunday saying that the Cabinet finalised the scrutiny of the proposed laws on Friday last week. Nankhumwa, who is also Minister of Local Government and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAoiEJSMlJspSwf6gvwEAXmumu0:productID":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5634,22,28,42],"tags":[15109,1966,15110,4464,3764],"class_list":["post-21993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-and-order","category-malawi-news","category-politics","category-world-headlines","tag-chakwra","tag-dpp","tag-electoral-reforms-bills","tag-grace-obama-chiumia","tag-nankhumwa"],"yoast_head":"\n