MZUZU-(MaraviPost)-The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has asked President Lazarus Chakwera to immediately leave office, saying his firing of the two Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) commissioners; Linda Kunje and Jean Mathanga, on incompetence grounds means he too was not duly elected as a president.
In a press release issued on April 15, 2021, DPP says the consequence of the rescission is that the appointments had no legal effect.
“Malawians will recall that soon after the appointment of the new Electoral Commission in June 2019, the Malawi Congress Party, which was and still is headed by Dr Lazarus Chakwera, sought to challenge the re-appointment of Commissioners Kunje and Mathanga in Civil Cause of 2019. That lawsuit was subsequently withdrawn and Commissioners Kunje and Mathanga participated in the electoral process that returned Dr Lazarus Chakwera as duly elected President of the Republic of Malawi,” reads the letter in part.
The once mighty party has also disclosed that it will be calling on the Courts to invalidate the nullification of the 23rd June 2020 Presidential Elections on grounds of undue election because the electoral body was not duly constituted
according to law; nullification of all the bye-elections conducted thereafter by the electoral body.
On Tuesday this week, government through Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Zangazanga Chikhosi, wrote a letter to Mathanga and Kunje informing them of their firing following the Supreme Court of Appeal finding them incompetent last year.