Mutharika attacks Judiciary for undermining Covid-19 fight, as Malawi cases rise to 336
President Peter Mutharika has again hit at the Judiciary for blocking government’s proposed coronavirus lockdown and push ahead with mass campaign rallies – ignoring all social distancing and the ban on gatherings of more than 100 – thereby threatening lives of people.
Malawi University of Science (MUST) . – Photo by Abel Ikiloni, Mana
Mutharika speaking in Thyolo on Monday when he joined the campaign trail for the fresh presidential elections due later this month accused the Judiciary that it was putting lives of Malawians at risk by stopping the lockdown while allowing them to go for a fresh presidential election amid the plague.
“Coronavirus is killing people in every country. This disease does not choose. Coronavirus can kill anyone at any time. That is what we are seeing everywhere,” said Mutharika on a visit to Malawi University of Science and Technology (Must), where he appreciated the innovations made by the university students aimed at stopping the spread of Covid-19.
High Court judge blocked the government from implementing a nationwide lockdown and the Chief Justice has since certified the matter to be reviewed in the Constitutional Court with not less than three judges.
“The problem we have in this country is that we are taking Coronavirus lightly,” said Mutharika, adding “our fight against Coronavirus is being undermined by politics.”
He continued: “The Courts stopped us from going on a lockdown. The same Courts want us to go to an election. Everybody knows that I won the 2019 election. If the Court had chosen to follow the law and evidence of the election case, we wouldn’t be going to another election.
“Now, we have a situation that is encouraging everybody to campaign and undermining social distance. We are risking lives of innocent Malawians. With this election, we are risking lives of our children, our mothers, our fathers, our brothers and sisters.
“As President of this country, this is what I have to say. This country must choose between fighting Coronavirus and going to an election. We must choose between life and death. As a country, we must make that choice.”
President Mutharika said the lockdown restrictions was aimed to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now infected 336 people in Malawi and killed four.
The Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 told the media in Lilongwe on Monday that 52 new Covid-19 cases have been recorded, bringing the number of infections in the country to 336. The number of recoveries remains at 42.
According to Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 co-chairperson Dr. John Phuka, on the cases, 42 are returnees from South Africa who passed through Mwanza, nine truck drivers and a man from Dedza who recently travelled to South Africa.
Phuka said the man from Dedza arrived in the country on May 11.
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Mr president pls stop blaming judiciary but rather blame urself for ur incompetent leadership style lockdown come here in south Africa with developed hospitals and see how corona continue accumulating figures just go ahead with elections we need to see the change
APM has to deal with the judiciary branch in his first year of term
Its your stupid government that has imported the cases from outside the country you miserable old brute!
Mutharika has the right to criticise the judgement and there is nothing wrong with that in the world of democracy. He criticised the way judgement was delivered, and it is not only him, many al so do criticises. Stop hating him, he is free to criticise, the same way we criticise any person or organisation. Grow up. Judges are not superior, they to error I their judgement. The good example is when concourt interpreted meaning of majority overriding what was interpreted by the. Supreme years ago, shows, they are not hundred percent right. It shows the Supreme Court erred and was cricked bythe lower court in their interpretation,
Our bodies have been hit by harder diseases than this Corona and we are still alive. Only four deaths in four months and most of them not Malawians. We will vote this month Mr President.
Imported cases 282, Local transmission 52 this is a pointer of poor Leadership in Malawi. There is no other country in the world that has produced such statistics. How can a country allow importation of a disease at such an alarming rate????? Poor or absent leadership. The fact is that this country is on Auto-pilot. Then the supposed president points at the judiciary!!! Really? My foot!! Its a joke of a president!!!! and he is seeking reelection. Our heavenly Father knock-off this joker to save our country. AMEN.
Malawi is our land no fear ndi Corona virus what we know is dzikolathutikufuna zithu zisithe basi and God knows,not lockdown mr president come and see South Africa we are in lockdown but nothing changed zisakho zichitike basi.
Covid 19 is highly overated. It is real and killing people globally yes. But hang on a minute, in more than 6 months it has killed 4 people in malawi. Only 4 people!
How many have died from HIV/ Aids, malaria, tb, cancer, cholera and other diseases? Why are we not talking about these other diseses which are killing more people?
Lets vote pa 23 June and lets get the winners to run affairs of state. Izi ayi izi!
Creating a crisis where there shouldn’t have been any. Someone’s advice to APM to use Covid 19 pandemic to scare Malawians is working. Roping in Phuka as co- chairman of the Covid 19 pandemic Committee is achieving the intended purpose. The man is announcing new cases in hundreds every other day; thanks to the returnees from RSA. If indeed all the people coming from South Africa are infected as we are led to believe, the situation there must be extremely hopeless. Is that so?
By the way only four people out of over 300 have alegedely lost their lives.
My fellow citizen Duda, u have eyes, plus use them to see and ears to hear… whenever u want to start a lockdown, u don’t just start 4 the sake of starting or copying from elsewhere. U need to analyze on how will u protect pple in as far as food is concerned and the Judiciary needed to know how will pple be protected during the lockdown of which mutharika failed to explain. You don’t just to what Germany, India, England does, this is Malawi we are talking abt where 85% of it’s citizens walk distances just for nkhuni, madzi, zigayo etc
Govt is to get the blame, not judges… this spread is due to returnees from SA who had to run from repatriation centers due to poor sanitation and food shortage plus no any security personnel was available to secure the repatriated ones. Judges didn’t refuse a lockdown but they needed a strategy govt will follow during lockdown of which mutharika failed to explain. In fact he just hate the judiciary becoz they followed the law by refusing to receive a bribe from cadet Thom Mpinganjira, we’re aware of this. Mulungu akuona and Malawi needs not to worry
As for the coronavirus, it’s a unpredictable situation, with even the WHO changing its predictions for Africa due to unexplained factors.
They are just speculating that the virus has not spread as badly as in Europe and the Americas due to a younger population or other factors they are unable to explain.
Certainly we need to be careful. But again referring to the WHO and the Africa CDC, lockdown is not necessarily the best solution for most of Africa.
As it is, very few African countries are able to deal with the normal day-to-day health challenges of common, known diseases such and Malaria or TB.
Lock-downs are supposed to ‘flatten the curve’. In other words, slow down the spread of the virus.
They do not prevent the virus from infecting more people. It is simply delayed until the authorities can plan for more capacity in hospitals and the health system.
In Africa, to expect any country to ever have enough capacity to treat any modest number of coronavirus patients is, frankly, a fantasy.
Currently no African country even manages to treat normal everyday conditions.
Even South Africa, with the most developed health system, has over-crowded and dilapidated public hospitals.
That is before the coronavirus.
The court didn’t direct any of the political parties to hold mass campaign rallies.
In fact, members of the President’s own ‘task-force’ as well as the ‘excellent’ MEC have advised politicians to avoid such risky rallies and instead opt-for media such as radio, television and newspapers.
Such media are more than capable of reaching large numbers of people, even in rural area where people still have access to radios.
So please do not blame the courts. They are following the law as enacted by parliament.
If you don’t like the law, change it. That is politics.
All the parties, DPP and MCP are at fault here.
Unfortunately, once the mass campaign rallies start they all must hold them for fear of being left behind.
There were some predictions about Malawi being one of the hardest hit countries with this virus. The numbers are slowly confirming this predictions. If we are not careful by December Malawi will be the epicenter of Corona in Africa, thanks to the judiciary
God has been fighting the virus for Malawians and will continue to do that…
The devil has failed to spread the virus within Malawi and now he is deliberately importing cases from outside our country, but make no mistake chisankho chichitikabe basi mufune musafune….period.
Well said @ Mbonga Matoga
Gogo iwe ndiwe chitsilu kwabasi. To start with, you won the last elections through cheating (TIPPEX) and the courts rightly nullified the election. Secondly on lockdown, how did you expect the povos to survive? Have the lockdowns in other countries really helped? i.e South Africa? Only 4 have died of covid-19 in Malawi (ena ongokokera) since the first case, and THOUSANDS have died of other diseases in the same period. Hence don’t ask your silly question about choosing to fight covid-19 or elections. Osatipusitsa. We’ve chosen to get rid of your stinking ILLEGAL government. Honestly speaking, you know you’re losing these elections HEAVILY. NYEKHWE.
mbuzi
Mbuzi ndiwe ndi agogo ako.
The judiciary is to blame because if we had a lockdown, returnees would have been no contact with all of us. That is what other countries have done. The have repatriated their people amidst a lockdown.
Anthu inu kodi mitu yanu yikugwira? Why do allow this sick man you call president to continue damaging this country?
You mean he doesn’t know that the HRDC took the Injunction and the court only determined the ruling based on the facts on the ground. Govt had all the freedom to challenge the ruling in the higher court. People demonstrated and rioted against your decision and based on that HRDC got the injunction because you wanted to lock down people who live on daily piece work. Further how many have died due to COVID-19 in Malawi since it started?
Again your suggestion that we choose between life and death is useless. I now believe the opposition Tonse Alliance that you are so afraid of the polls that you are planning to cancel it. But this will not happen. If you want to boycott you can so. We are going to contest against Mbakuwaku!
A lockdown would have been meaningless because there was no Corona Virus in Malawi. All the cases are by DPP government’s policy of importing cases. By now the lockdown would have been over and you could still be importing those cases. So what use could the suffering under lockdown be? Paja nzeru zidatha bulutu ameneyu. Do not blame judges, they follow the law which is before them. Just follow the law and you will succeed with your implementation of the lockdown. also, put in place some contingency plans when Malawians are in lockdown.
What you forgeting is being objective
Do you think judge nyirenda is any good no he is the same person that let the 5 chinese that had bern set to be returned by the immigration as they had been inadmissible in another countries because they had covid19. He let them in so he set precedence for all others cases of people coming in . This to me seems to be mbuli more than the president corrupt he is .
See what he did in kenya nyirenda to assist the party that was oppressive to win
Please be objective i am not a DPP support but a citizen that looks at things factually and objectively
Try that
Why coming out, why not observing social distancing yourself as an example, were there less than hundred people in the gatherings you conducted? Koma majaji muwada mpaka liti? Ena mumafuna akanavomeleza zotsatira zachisankho pomwe unu simukuvomereza chigamulo chakukhoti Eshi I cry for my beloved Malawi
The sooner we see the back of this old senile man the better for our country to move on, he is just hell bent on maintaining his grip on power….
If you won the May election legitimately mr president then why are you so desperately worried, you will surely win again since your support base is still there, they are not dead yet from coronavirus….
The funny thing mr president is that it is now becoming more obvious that you want to use the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to avoid the upcoming elections..
First of all many sensible Malawians are wondering what you were trying to achieve today by making the statement that you have made.
The way your government has handled the coronavirus pandemic in our country is so appalling.
You have deliberately imported coronavirus cases from SA without proper strategy on how to contain them when they enter our country….because you and your henchmen are so busy stealing covid money to top up your pensions as you leave government in July.
You brought potential coronavirus cases from SA and dump them at Kamuzu Stadium without food or proper sanitation because you knew that those people will not stand the torture and will eventually escape to spread the virus into our communities….well done mr president and your government for a well executed plan.
The only problem you are forgetting mr president is that when everything is said and done and when this epidemic is over in our country, the history books will remember you as the most incompetent president that Malawi has ever had.
You will also be remembered as the president who did everything possible to avoid a court sanctioned election including deliberately and actively planning to spread coronavirus in our country.
For me, after hearing all the things that You mr president has done personally and through your government and henchmen, I would like to advise you to make sure that our country Malawi should at all cost not be on your top 10 list of countries that you want to retire to……that’s all I can say.
It is a mystery that this thing can walk. And talk!
Mr President we choose Elections over fighting COVID19. GOD will fight for us. Dziko lonseli anzeru sindinu Nokha.
We’ve a nuisance in our president! Poti ena anatisankhila we will live with it.
My president, most of the cases are imported. And mostly from SA. And that has nothing to do with the Court. Further you are benefiting the campaign without a lockdown. Contradict your views
munthuyu alibe nzeru ndithu lockdown yopanda chakudya aaaaaaa kodi nde kuti alibe ma adviser it seems amangodzidzimuka wayankhula chinthu osaganiza very useless ndithu
There is ignorance in both our judges and a lot of people. A lockdown would have made it impossible for returnees to infect other people because their movement would have been restricted.
No mayi Rute. A lock down as it sounds is for people inside the country who are locked down.
Ochoka kunja are received, tested and quarantined.
Pepani chizungu chimabvuta nthawi zina
our government is importing covid 19 victims, so is not our judges but DPP government, aliyese akudziwa kuti its not local transmission, by the way kwa kaliyeka, which way, government took to stop corona virus transmission?
Our judges are to blame. Lockdown would have helped in the sense that returnees would have been limited in their movements. Without lockdown we have a problem. Countries have been repatriating people and actually it is the people (activists) and Malawians in South Africa who asked government to do so.
Che Juma kwangali nzeru?
You lock down people inside the country but receive, test and quarantine ochokera kunja- a simple assignment which DPP cadets failed to implement in Blantyre, of course with an objective.
Please check your facts .
Take injunction stopping people from entering this country or tell the judiciary to stop them.