LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The day which all Malawians; particularly those who follow and understand how political decisions in the country are made and implemented, is here. Monday 3rd February, 2020.
The day which the Constitutional Court set aside for the delivery of the judgment of the presidential election case which was being heard by a panel of five judges since mid last year.
When the two petitioners: Dr Saulos Chilima of UTM and Dr Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi Congress Party (MCP) dragged to court Professor Arthur Peter Muthalika and Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), for being ‘controversially’ announced the winner of the presidential polls and for poorly managing the same respectively, most Malawians never forsaw the kind of tense, anxiety and unpredictability the judgment of such a case would cause amongst them.
When the case was being heard during those 59 days, there were moments in time when everyone who listened to the airing of the same, become a judge and passed verdict as to who the winner and the loser were.
At some points, listeners of the case lost interest and only listened for the sake whiling away time. However, at other points in time, the courtroom became a stage where a drama staged itself. Remembering how some witnesses tussled it out with counsels of the other party, still refreshes the memories.
Simulation of data from various sophisticated gadgets was talk of the town and a new vocabulary to those who take learning as an everyday activity. How some witnesses such as Mirriam Gwalidi and Daud Suleman responded to the Attorney General, Kalekeni Kaphale, turned the court session into a theatrical episode.
Fast forward, tense and anxiety kept increasing when the court announced that judgment would come in the next 45 days from 20 December, 2019, the day the court finished receiving both written and oral submissions from the counsels of petitioners and the respondents.
Waiting for the elapse of the given days was more unusual and more desperate than the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. During the countdown, nearly everyone was saying everything about the judgment. Thank heaven the 45th day is finally here.
In the midst of the period, political parties and other stakeholders did their excellent jobs of appealing to Malawians to respect the judgment. It is only a hope that such messages of goodwill did not fall on deaf ears.
Apparently, when the Registrar of the High Court, Agness Patemba, announced last week, that the five judges who were compiling the judgment, will deliver on Monday 3rd February, 2020, more pressure and anxiety swelled. Waiting for the day was as hard as waiting for a wedding day.
In the past few days, some pockets of the society have made different statements as regards the judgment day. Malawi Defense Force (MDF) and the Malawi Police Service have time and again stressed that security on the day and later will be tighter than never before. Nkhoma and Livingstonia Synods went kneeling to the government asking for a public holiday on this particular day. All that is about the judgment day which is today.
Let the learned judges pass the judgment and let us all take heed of the same. And let who the cap fits wear it!