Cabinet on Monday finally approved three bills that seek to harmonise electoral laws to enable the country hold tripartite elections next year, Attorney General Anthony Kamanga confirmed on Tuesday.
This means that once gazetted, the three amendment bills, which include the Local Government Elections (LGE) Act, the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections (PPE) and the Electoral Commission (EC) Act, will now be tabled in Parliament for debate and passing.
“We are printing the gazettes now for the bills and our intention is to expedite the process. This is a process and the only reason we did not gazette was that it is a procedure and gazetting is not done until Cabinet formally says ‘yes’,” said Kamanga in an interview.
The LGE and PPE amendments bills are dealing with the synchronising and harmonisation of the electoral procedure in light of the amendment of the Constitution to have the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections together with the Local Government Elections.
The EC Amendment Bill is aimed at resolving challenges in the demarcation of wards in two municipality councils of Kasungu and Luchenza in Thyolo as well as Mangochi Town Council.
According to Kamanga, the current law has provision for a maximum number of wards for only cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Zomba while for other areas the law provides for a maximum of two wards per constituency.
During a debate on Saturday organised by the National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice), several commentators expressed concern about the delay in amending the electoral laws with some observing that the development indicated that the country was not ready to hold tripartite elections next year.
This followed an earlier revelation that the bills to amend the laws were not yet endorsed and approved by a Cabinet Committee.
In an interview on Tuesday, Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn) publicity secretary Steve Duwa welcomed Cabinet’s decision to deal with the bills expeditely.
However, Tuesday, Leader of the House Henry Phoya said Cabinet approved the three bills that would see the harmonisation of the electoral laws.
Said Phoya: “I cannot reveal when we approved these bills due to ‘Cabinet oath of secrecy.’ Revealing this will be like emptying Cabinet issues to the public.”
