Opposition MPs’ injunction stops Malawi parliament from conducting business

The Malawi parliament failed to conduct business following a high court injunction from the opposition effectively stopping it from doing so in the capital Lilongwe on Monday.

Speaker of Parliament Louis Chimango, in response to President Bingu wa Mutharika call, convened the House for five minutes Monday afternoon only to explain the dramatic announcement.

Chimango, making the announcement, said he could not proceed with business after receiving the court injunction from an independent member of parliament Gerald Mponda and his colleague Leonard Mangulama of the opposition United Democratic Front of former president Bakili Muluzi.

Due to this, parliament would have to wait for further communication from the government on convening the House, he said.

The parliament had been scheduled for Monday afternoon to discuss the 2007/2008 budget which has remained under lock ever since the opposition said it would only pass it after the issue of MPs who defected to the government side was settled.

Mangulama confirmed to APA that he had obtained the injunction through former Attorney General and lawyer Ralph Kasambara, asking the court not to allow any business to be conducted in parliament until Wednesday (August 8).

"We are waiting for the court to hear the judicial reviews on injunctions obtained by the university students and government parliamentarians, thereafter the House can meet or until further order by the courts," Mangulama said.

The students had taken their own court injunction restraining the MPs from discussing anything else in the House apart from the budget.

It was this injunction that enabled the president to ask the Speaker to convene Monday’s session.

Kasambara, in his application, said the Speaker was not free to transact business in the House in view of the University of Malawi students’ injunction limiting what could be transacted in the House.

Attorney General Jane Ansah said her office was working on lifting Mangulama/Kasambara injunction to enable parliament to meet once again.

Until such a time, parliament has adjourned sine die, Chimango said, amid catcalls from the government side to the opposition benches.

UDF MPs in parliament would not be intimidated into discussing the budget before the defecting MPs were dismissed from the House, said Muluzi Sunday when he addressed an opposition rally Sunday in Chiradzulu District, 30 km east of the commercial city of Blantyre.

An hour before midnight on Sunday Kasambara managed to succeed in convincing a high court judge at his home to issue the injunction that stopped Monday’s proceedings in parliament, according to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s spokesman Heatherwick Ntaba.

Meanwhile, anti-opposition demonstrations continue in the capital Lilongwe and in other parts of the country led by activists and university students.

The activists have camped near the city’s mausoleum to Malawi’s first President Kamuzu Banda, pledging to keep vigil there until the MPs agree to pass the national budget.