NATIONAL ASSEMBLY SPEAKER INSISTS THAT HE WON’T RESIGN AS MCP’S VICE PRESIDENT

National Assembly Speaker Richard Msowoya has insisted that he will not resign from his position as vice president of the Malawi Congress Party.

Mr Msowoya revealed to our FOM reporters saying “There is no law that requires me to resign from the position of vice president of the Malawi Congress party. I am very much active in my role as the vice president of MCP and do not intend in any way to resign from the position,”

But seeing as the top four political parties differing on whether the speaker should resign or not.

Chief Whip for the ruling DPP, Henry Mussa said in view of conflict of interests that arise when one doubles roles, it is important that Msowoya resigned and that was to be done the very time he ascended into the office of speaker.

UDF leader in Parliament, Lucius Banda on the other hand had this to say: “Much as we haven’t had problems with his conduct in parliament till now, I still feel he needs to resign as the time draws to the sitting of parliament for the sake of the noble office he holds,” he said.

Director of Research in the Malawi Congress Party, Lingson Belekanyama said the party has had no problem with the speaker continuing to hold the position of vice presidency of a party.

“I am sure Malawi is not the first country to have a senior politician as speaker of parliament, the same has happened in Zimbabwe and Mauritius before,” he said.

Peoples Party in parliament, Uladi Mussa say he finds no problem problems with the manner in which Msowoya has conducted himself as speaker even though he doubles with his party role.

However Institute for Policy Interaction Executive Director, Rafik Hajat urged Msowoya to resign even though there is no law calling him to do so since the previous Speaker set the precedent by resigning as Secretary General of the Democratic Progressive Party and so MCP was supposed to follow suit