{"id":2536,"date":"2006-05-19T10:04:38","date_gmt":"2006-05-19T10:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sardc.net\/en\/?p=2536"},"modified":"2014-09-08T10:21:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T10:21:21","slug":"defection-law-presidential-age-dominate-malawi-constitutional-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/southern-african-news-features\/defection-law-presidential-age-dominate-malawi-constitutional-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Defection law, presidential age dominate Malawi constitutional debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Patson Phiri – \u00a0SANF 06 No 38<\/em><\/strong>
\nMalawi has embarked on the second amendment of its Constitution but two issues have assumed centre-stage \u2013 whether to limit the age of presidential candidates to 70 years or to lift a ban on floor crossing by sitting legislators.<\/p>\n

The constitutional debate has generated a lot of interest among political parties, civil society, the media and Malawians keen to determine the destiny of their country.<\/p>\n

The first amendment was in 1994 when the 1966 Constitution which favoured a one-party political system was repealed to allow for multi-partyism.<\/p>\n

Attention during the current constitutional debate has centred on the contentious Section 65 of the Constitution which bars sitting parliamentarians from defecting to other political parties.<\/p>\n

The section makes it illegal for Members of Parliament (MPs) to change allegiance during the course of their parliamentary term.<\/p>\n

Section 65 states that \u201cthe Speaker shall declare vacant the seat of any member of the National Assembly who was, at the time of his or her election, a member of one party represented in Parliament but who has voluntarily ceased to be a member of that party and has joined another party represented in the National Assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Bingu wa Mutharika has proposed that the section be removed from the Constitution because it infringes on rights of Members of Parliament.<\/p>\n

Mutharika told a recent constitutional review conference held in Lilongwe that Section 65 contradicts Section 32 of the same Constitution, which guarantees freedom of association.<\/p>\n

He noted that the constitutional review should safeguard the rights of individuals to belong to associations of their choice and not be forced to belong to any political party.<\/p>\n

\u201cSection 65, dealing with the issue of crossing the floor should be deemed not to be compatible with or contradictory to Section 32 (which gives a person freedom to belong to the association of their choice) and should accordingly be deleted from the Constitution,\u201d said Mutharika.<\/p>\n

Mutharika\u2019s comments came as the political future of 68 MPs who defected to his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) hangs in the balance after defecting from the United Democratic Front (UDF).<\/p>\n

Mutharika was elected on a UDF ticket before forming his own party following differences with his predecessor, Bakili Muluzi, who heads the UDF.<\/p>\n

The DPP has 74 MPs, six of which were elected following by-elections early this year and the rest defected from the UDF.<\/p>\n

The UDF has 30 MPs while the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) has 60 legislators in the House of Assembly.<\/p>\n

Malawi\u2019s parliament has a total of 193 legislators, 29 of whom are independents.<\/p>\n

The constitutional debate has also centred on limiting the age of a presidential candidate to a maximum of 70 years.<\/p>\n

This would effectively close the door for Mutharika and leaders of other political parties who are already above the proposed age limit.<\/p>\n

President Mutharika is 72 this year while MCP\u2019s John Tembo is 77 years.<\/p>\n

Both leaders will not be eligible to contest the presidency during the next polls set for 2009 if the constitutional amendment goes through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Patson Phiri – \u00a0SANF 06 No 38 Malawi has embarked on the second amendment of its Constitution but two issues have assumed centre-stage \u2013 whether to limit the age of presidential candidates to 70 years or to lift a ban on floor crossing by sitting legislators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-southern-african-news-features"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sanf.gif?fit=147%2C144&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4h5b0-EU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sardc.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}