The President stuck with a political stillborn

The prorogation of parliament by the President has understandably, caused confusion, consternation and conjecture in certain quarters. Equally thought provoking is the apparent lack of expert consultation before the execution of this outrageous decision on the August House.

The tittle-tattle had already been twirling around the New State House and the Capital Hill that the President was considering proroguing Parliament once the budget was passed. However by delivering this ill-timed blow to the opposition Mutharika has just laid the foundation for another acrimonious political season in 2008 and again rewarded handsomely the “drug sandwich brigade”.

This President has just dug himself dipper in a quagmire. He has indeed immersed himself in a toxic political mortgage. We will see how he will try to boogie-woogie around this one this time about.

Already the opposition is extrapolating this unpopular move, as extremely contentious and a vulgar violation of our democratic tenets. The leeway is enormous that those who sympathize with the opposition campaign will consume the inflammatory oratory and disingenuous cant, which they are sometimes guilty of.

Like it has been brilliantly chronicled on the Malawi Nation news website this prorogation of Parliament ended the parliament session, which means Goodall Gondwe was caught with eyes popping out-morsel in throat as he still had some bills to be passed. Surely he reluctantly went home with a brief full of unfinished business courtesy of this insular leadership.

What the President and his band of bootlicking flatterers are trying to do is to unfairly and criminally preserve their positions in Parliament without going to the people for a fresh term of office. By trying to sustain power by fastener or felon the government is violating popular authority.

Intentionally choreographing illicit MP-captures, which are banned by the existing bill of rights, severely chips away at the popular will. For, MPs who abandon the party from which they were elected to parliament are increasingly infuriating voters. All this duplicity appears to be lost on our government.

The government leader of the house Chimunthu Banda admitted to the press at the weekend that there was some crucial unfinished government business that had to be set aside for the President to laze around in this self inflicted political stupor. It’s amazing though that as the “big cahoona” of government business in Parliament he did not seem to foresee this reality befalling the president’s miscalculation.

Some pundits see this move as one intended to delay or to steer clear of the implementation of Sec 65. This was not an economic decision though but a shameful expression of cowardice, selfishness, cerebral clumsiness and subversion by somebody who declared on National Television and National Radio that he does not fear death. Those who don’t fear death therefore must not shudder at the mention of impeachment let alone implementation of Sec 65.

The incumbent’s decision to prorogue Parliament is therefore not above suspicion given the gibberish he carelessly uttered before implementing this thoughtless act of political naivety. True if a Parliament Session goes on for a while, the government wants to find ways to modify the feed, twist the folio, unwrap a new episode and that can, for any government in authority, cut both ways, but the way Bingu has done it smacks of rancor. It’s gone beyond the wishy-washy.

It is not surprising then that this twaddle or claptrap did not go down well with the opposition and instead they are seething with anger. Like the parties in the opposition said, government may still want Parliament to pass some important bills that have been strangled by this impetuosity. They say there is plenty of unfinished business to get on with. So what is the point of curtailing deliberations now only to spend more time and resources on the same in 2008? What difference does it make?

This proroguing of Parliament will be a pointless waste of expensive parliamentary time because MPs will bicker and brawl for days over Sec. 65 and, if the government survives, motions to reinstate bills that died on the order paper will commence. What’s so neat about that?

Nobody disputes the fact that Government apparatus as well as the daily life of the public has to go on but this egoistically motivated stir is bullying this pattern. This problem is complicated by the civil society’s decision to come off the fence and side with the government even when it is being scandalous and dissolute.

Finally thwarting lawlessness is the duty of the State first and foremost and the citizens last. This prorogation of parliament is a preventable nuisance. We could have done without it for it is just the sine qua non of greed. The case rests.