Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has announced that it will hold national wide demonstrations this Wednesday at Parliament building to make sure that the law makers have set the elections date and pass the electoral bills.
Speaking on Sunday 7th June,2020 HRDC chairperson Gift Trapance said they want the members of parliament to prioritize the elections date and the electoral bills.
“Yes, Indeed HRDC will hold demonstrations this coming Wednesday and the demonstrations has two goals the first goal is to make sure we have the date that will be put in place by Parliament to make sure Malawians are able to vote within the 150 day that the Court gave the country in terms of the Judgement”
“The second issue is to make sure that we have new Commissioners that can be entrusted to manage the elections. What we have noted is that the government is running from this elections so we don’t want politicing in the whole process we want Malawians to be given that opportunity, mandate to vote for the leader they want and that was arleady mandated by both Constitutional and Supreme Court”, said Trapence.
HRDC Chairperson also noted that as HRDC they are going to make sure that the law makers focus on setting the elections date and passing of electoral bills and right now their focus as Members of Parliament should be on the elections not anything else.
“As HRDC we are going to make sure they prioritize the elections issue and it’s very easy and it’s also part of our strategy and I can’t review the strategy now because they will start running away from their responsibility, but we have to say that parliament should prioritize the elections making sure we have the legal framework but as well we have the date”
“We are not trying to block them to discuss National importance issues we want a stable government that can implement the bugdet, if we don’t have a government then this parliament session is just nothing”,said Trapence.
Trapence further said the law makers will not find it as an excuse when HRDC goes there and hold vigils because they are their at Parliament because of Malawians therefore they should their interest aside and focus on doing what the citizens of Malawi wants.
“We know very well that these MPs have been cheating on Malawians for a quite along time, they have been politicising infact they must know that they are at the parliament because of Malawians and they should not find an excuse when Malawians go their and demonstrate”
“What we are saying here is that they have to prioritize the elections and they can discuss the bugdet later after making sure that we have a date for elections also laws that can regulate the fresh elections. The laws, the bills are arleady their and what they can do is to ammend and send back those bills to the president”,said Trapence.
The Coalition is expected to hold the vigils at Parliament starting from Wednesday 10th June up to Friday 12th June 2020.
