MALAWI: Third term controversy heats up

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MALAWI: Third term controversy heats up

BLANTYRE, 9 May (IRIN) - President Bakili Muluzi has maintained an official
silence over a controversial campaign to change the constitution to allow
him to run for a third term in 2004, but opposition leaders are demanding
that he make his position known.

Since January, Muluzi has held a series of country-wide rallies doling out
development funds, which he describes as "coming to see you to listen to
your problems" visits. Apart from alluding to future plans for the
betterment of the country, he has not referred directly to the hotly
disputed issue of whether he intends to stand for an unconstitutional third
term.

Newly-appointed Minister of Justice and Attorney General Henry Phoya,
recently said there would be no government bill to amend the constitution to
provide for a third term. But some members of the ruling United Democratic
Front (UDF) party have been less reticent. A private members bill is
expected in the next sitting of parliament on 31 May.

Local chiefs, who have been put on the government's payroll, are being
lobbied by the UDF to support a third term. Regional governors, appointed by
Muluzi, have also weighed in with their support for the president.

Over the weekend Southern Malawi governor Davis Kapito told Muluzi at a
rally he addressed in Mulanje, 60 km east of Blantyre, that the country
wanted him to continue as president. "Whether you like it or not, you will
stand again," Kapito told the president in front of thousands of supporters
who attended the rally.

Kapito said members of parliament were free to amend the constitution
because they represented the people. "After all, the people who framed the
constitution were just picked from here and there. They did not represent
the people," he argued.

The UDF has 92 seats in the 193-member parliament, well short of the
two-thirds majority needed for constitutional amendments. However, the two
major opposition parties - the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the Alliance
for Democracy (AFORD) - are split. Both have factions that are working with
the government.

The third term issue is debated almost daily in the media. On Tuesday during
a phone-in programme on independent Capital FM radio, nine callers out of 10
said the president should step down at the end of his term of office. Some
said the argument that there was no one better qualified than the incumbent
was the same used by the praise singers during the single party dictatorship
of Kamazu Banda.

The Catholic and Anglican churches, Muslim clerics and several other
organisations have all publically opposed a third term.

Opposition strongman Brown Mpinganjira, who heads the National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) pressure group, has called for a constitutional conference to
discuss the matter.

Mpinganjira, a powerful former minister who was dropped from cabinet last
year on corruption charges, has also suggested that not everybody in the UDF
would like to see Muluzi stand again after his second five-year term expires
in 2004.

"Most curious has been the silence by some UDF heavyweights such as
Vice-President Justin Malewezi, UDF Party Vice-President Aleke Banda [also
agriculture minister], minister Harry Thompson and National Assembly Speaker
Sam Mpasu," Mpinganjira reportedly wrote in a letter to Muluzi on 3 May.

"These four have not voiced out any support for the third term. It may not
be far fetched to conclude that their silence means opposition of the third
term issue," read the letter in part.

Recently, the British High Commission, representing Malawi's biggest single
bilateral donor, warned against rushing to amend the constitution before
wider consultation.

[ENDS]

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