Sec 65 to frustrate JB reforms—Uladi

HOME Affairs Minister Uladi Mussa has expressed fear that the implementation of Section 65 could derail progress economic and legal reforms that President Joyce Banda has made since she took over the government.

Mussa said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was pressing for Section 65 implementation out of malice and sour grapes.

Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the opening of Manase Police Unit in Blantyre on Sunday, he stressed that the DPP leadership was pushing for the implementation of the section out of vengeance and not in the interest of the nation.

Mussa also made the same argument to the people who gathered to witness the opening of the police unit.

“The problem with Africa is that greed surpasses good intention in most opposition politicians, which is very true with the attitude of the DPP now.

“It is sad that in Africa we don’t support the leader of the day and mostly we see that immediately after election or when a new leader comes into power, the opposition engages a gear of pull-him/her-down in order to make the leader fail.

“This is what exactly the DPP is doing and they are using the Section 65 as a scapegoat,” said Mussa, who dumped Maravi People’s Party (MPP) to join PP.

Mussa said Sec 65 is a threat to hard-won democracy as it gags objectivity of parliamentarians in parties run by ‘dictators’ and selfish leaders who usually just want to articulate personal interests.

“To me Section 65 contradicts with Section 40 on political rights of MPs of the same constitution and I can safely say this controversial Section 65 imprisons parliamentarians to ably represent their constituents,” he said.

However, the DPP is on record as saying they are not pressing for Section 65 implementation of vengeance, but to bring sanity and respect to the rule of law in Parliament.

“Some people are saying we should not (petition speaker on Section 65) because the party survived on a similar case before 2009, but we are saying two wrongs do not make a right,” Nicholus Dausi, the party’s publicity secretary said this month.

He said the party has “a moral high ground” on the Sec 65 argument because there is a legal procedure set by the High Court in 2006 on the interpretation of the Section 65 of the Constitution.

The party’s leader in Parliament George Chaponda also vowed in a media interview that the party would fight hard to ensure the law is applied and hinted it might go to courts to seek redress if the speaker does not give a ruling in their favour.