Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) insists that Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (Mubas) telecommunications lecturer Mayamiko Nkoloma is qualified for appointment as Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) commissioner.
DPP said this yesterday after President Lazarus Chakwera rescinded his earlier decision to appoint Nkoloma as MEC commissioner representing the party, replacing Francis Kasaila who resigned in April this year to contest in parliamentary elections.
In an interview yesterday, DPP secretary general Peter Mukitho queried the rationale behind Chakwera’s decision to reverse Nkoloma’s appointment on the basis that he is a public officer.
He said: “Matters of university lecturers being public officers were already challenged in court and there are so many verdicts. They [courts] have clearly stated that lecturers are not public servants. So I don’t know where the OPC [Office of the President and Cabinet] is getting that information and who advises them.”
When contacted yesterday, OPC director of legal affairs Chizaso Nyirongo said he was yet to see DPP’s letter querying the President’s decision, as such, he would not comment.
“Give us time. If there is any communication from the party, let it come through, then we will form our opinion,” he said.
Section 75 (2) of the Constitution states that “a person shall not be qualified to hold the office of a member of the Electoral Commission if that person is a minister, deputy minister, a member of Parliament or a person holding public office”.
Secretary to the President and Cabinet Colleen Zamba, in a letter to MEC chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja on Sunday, said that the President’s decision was based on the fact that Nkoloma was still a public officer.
In March 2014, MEC referred a matter to the High Court of Malawi after it refused nomination papers for then Mzuzu University lecturer Samuel Safuli, arguing that he was a public officer. But in her ruling, judge Dorothy NyaKaunda Kamanga, now Justice of Appeal, ruled that Safuli was neither a public nor an employee in the civil service and that his failure to resign at Mzuzu University had no legal consequence in the electoral process.
