Malawi's parliament passes budget after lengthy political deadlock

Malawi's parliament approved the 2007-2008 national budget Tuesday after nearly five months of political impasse that held up key development programs in one of the world's poorest countries.

The budget was supposed to take effect July 1, the beginning of the official financial year. But opposition lawmakers blocked its discussion, saying that lawmakers who defected to join President Bingu wa Mutharika's ruling Democratic Progressive Party should first be expelled.

Mutharika quit the former ruling United Democratic Front to found his own party after falling out with his predecessor, former President Bakili Muluzi, and accusing his erstwhile colleagues of frustrating his anti-graft campaign. His party never contested an election, and most of its lawmakers defected from the main opposition party.

After a series of court injunctions, threats to dissolve the legislature and daily street demonstrations, the 193-member assembly reluctantly agreed to debate the budget first and look at the political issues later.

Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe reacted with excitement.

"I am over the moon," said the former World Bank official. "We can now go back to issues of development."

Not everyone was smiling, though. The state-run Malawi Broadcasting Corporation and Television Malawi will have to brace for a tough financial year ahead as parliament agreed to allocate them a symbolic 1 Malawi Kwacha or less than 1 American cent.

This followed an order by Muluzi, the former president, that opposition lawmakers should deny the two state broadcasters public funding because they were being used for government propaganda.

Despite the domestic political crises, Mutharika's government has won praise from abroad for his tough stance on corruption and his efforts to modernize the economy, which is based on subsistence farming. The southern African nation, which frequently suffered from crop failure in the past, is enjoying good harvests this year, thanks partly to innovative small scale programs to boost production.