LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The second deputy speaker of Malawi Parliament on Wednesday Aisha Adams told the nation that it is very costly for one to become a Member of Parliament (MP) saying its costly .
Adams made the observation during the launch of the Malawian candidates survey for 2019 report in the capital Lilongwe.
“For one to become a member of parliament people look for a good character not only money.
Malawi introduced the act to be followed but in the last tripartite elections the act was there which people was supposed to follow but nobody was there to monitor and people did not follow the act. This time around we will need the civil societies to monitor so that the act is being followed”, she said.
Micheal Wahman the assistant professor in the department of political science from Michigan State University said that in this research study they conducted concerning the malawian candidates they have questioned different candidates about the tripartite elections and across Malawi they have selected 375 candidates.
” in this research we have found that standing elections in Malawi is expensive where the average spends 14 million kwacha in the campaign period and this money that they are spending is not that what they get after winning the elections”, he said
Finally he also said that Malawi has to start discussing the problems about the money in politics and start thinking about the solutions to these problems.
The average parliamentary candidates in the 2019 elections spent a total of MK14.8 million seeking election and this number include all candidates even those with little or no chance of being elected.
The candidates that won more than 20% of the vote, the average is MK27 million Malawi and this amount equals to 140% of an Mps annual salary.