Opposition protests as Mutharika opens budget sessio

Embattled Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika, facing a serious test in the opposition-dominated Parliament, on Monday opened the 2008 / 09 budget session of Parliament with only five opposition MPs present.

The president, who did not refer to the opposition boycott, said his government was delivering on the economic front despite the opposition "pulling the other way".

"We promised to check corruption, we have done that; we promise to improve the e conomy, we have done that," said the 73-year-old economist-turned-politician ami d hand-clapping from his back-benchers.

Mutharika said for the first time in Malawi inflation was in single-digit while bank interest rates had been coming down.

"In the past we used to beg for food but last year we had a surplus of over 500, 000 metric tonnes of maize which will be repeated this year," he said.

On the boycott, the main opposition Malawi Congress Party parliamentary spokesma n Ishael Chafukira, said the opposition staged the boycott as a sign of protest.

"First, Bingu called us 'animals' when he said 'what kind of animals did you sen d to Parliament?'" he said. "We didn't want to dignify the president's remarks."

Mutharika made the remark at the weekend during a public engagement in describin g the opposition for frustrating government business in Parliament.

Chafukira also said another reason the opposition boycotted Mutharika's speech w as because the president was "a hypocrite calling for dialogue and yet he castigates us".

The former ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) leader of Parliament George Mtaf u said his MPs could not go to Parliament to be insulted.

"Bingu castigates us all the time," he said.

Mtafu also said his party was protesting government's detention of opposition me mbers for what he termed as "trumped up treason charges".

Senior UDF leaders and senior retired and serving police and army officers were arrested last week for allegedly plotting to topple the Mutharika administration .

There has been bad blood between the Mutharika administration and the opposition since the president dumped the UDF party on whose ticket he contested the 2004 e lections that ushered him into office.

He founded his own party nine months after the election when he spectacularly fe ll out with his predecessor, former president Bakili Muluzi, who ironically anoi n ted him as successor.

Muluzi has since vowed to remove Mutharika from power "for being ungrateful".

The former president has since been endorsed by the UDF, of which he is national chairman, as the party's presidential candidate in the scheduled 19 May, 2009 elections despite constitutional doubts of his eligibility to stand again for offi c e after serving two consecutive five-year terms.