MCP plays down criticism on Chakwera’s reshuffle

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Dr. Lazarus Chakwera has been accused of flouting and raping the party’s constitution with impunity with the recent appointments that he made to its National Executive Committee (NEC) as the constitution is clear that only the convention has the mandate of electing members of NEC.

Chakwera recently made several appointments which beefed up the party’s NEC with several added positions which some party members say does not exist in the country’s oldest party’s NEC.

One of the MCP lawmakers turned Chakwera’s critic, Felix Jumbe has said MCP constitution has been “raped” with the changes in NEC.

Jumbe, who has been demoted in the NEC reorganisation, saidthe position of campaign director which he held was “a delegated one from the convention, hence non-negotiable.”

He is now second deputy director for strategic planning.

“Whatever happened renders the convention null and void. People need to understand that my appointment was a delegated authority in the sense that the convention only elected the president, his deputy, treasurer and secretary general and these people were given authority to elect and fill the remaining portfolios. Once this is done, no one can tamper with the positions and it’s only the convention that can change the composition of the national executive committee (NEC).

“The MCP constitution protects the president from abusing the powers and start putting friends and relatives into the NEC, but if you look closely this is the trend that’s happening now,” said Jumbe.

MCP Secretary General Gustav Kaliwo said that indeed the convention is supreme authority in the party but said NEC makes some decisions on behalf of the convention for the smooth running of the party.

“When NEC is not sitting the management committee makes such decisions and NEC and the convention can ratify or reject at a later stage. What happened is that the management committee made the recommendation to the president for approval with immediate effect for the smooth running of the party. The president indeed ratified the recommendations of the management committee and there is nothing wrong with that,” said Kaliwo who is also senior legal practitioner.

He gave an example of a corporate company whose owners are shareholders but some decisions are made by the Board of Directors and management implements those decisions.

“The positions that were made will be referred to NEC and the convention at an appropriate time. Meanwhile the party has to operate smoothly hence the recent appointments, there is nothing illegal about this,” clarified Kaliwo.

According to Part 3 and Article 30:2 says: “The members of the National Executive Committee shall be elected by the Convention of the party every five years provided that for the position of the President, he will hold such office for two terms only if elected for the second term.”

In the new appointment there are new positions such Director of Public Relations, Director of Strategic Planning, Director of International Affairs and Director of Economic Planning among others.