UDF split on move to govt benches, writes Speaker to ‘cross the floor’

There is discontent among some United Democratic Front (UDF) Members of Parliament (MPs) over the opposition party’s decision to ask Speaker of Parliament to relocate them to the government side in the chamber.

In a letter, UDF says the party’s request is in line with its working relationship with the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Minute details of the ‘alliance’ between DPP and UDF have remained unclear since President Peter Mutharika appointed UDF leader Atupele Muluzi as Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining.

UDF secretary general Kandi Padambo yesterday confirmed in an interview that he wrote Speaker Richard Msowoya a week before Parliament convened for the Mid-term Budget Review Meeting, asking that UDF MPs be given places on the government side of the House.

Msowoya is yet to respond to the request.

Padambo said the decision was made following thorough consultations with lawyers who have assured them that the move is not unconstitutional.

Said Padambo: “Yes, it is true I wrote the Speaker, but as I am talking now, I have not yet received a response. Before I wrote the letter, we knew the controversy surrounding such a decision and we sought legal opinion which concurs that our MPs will not be in contravention of any law. We would like to go to the government side as a political party but the MPs would remain in the UDF.”

However, the request to move to the government side has not proved popular with some UDF MPs who disowned Padambo’s letter in random interviews at Parliament Building yesterday.

The MPs confided in The Nation that the decision to join the government side of the House was not their initiative as UDF representatives in Parliament.

Said one MP: “We are just hearing about it [the letter], but I have no idea of its contents except that the party leadership would like us to move to the government side. We are fighting to stay in opposition.”

In the National Assembly, UDF is led by Balaka North MP Lucius Banda with Mangochi South MP Lilian Patel as chief whip.

When contacted yesterday, Banda declined to comment on the MPs’ position, saying the UDF secretariat would be best placed to do so.

UDF has 14 MPs in the House and its movement to the government side would reduce the opposition dominance following the May 20 Tripartite Elections.

Section 65 of the Constitution as amended in 2001 empowers the Speaker to declare vacant a seat of an MP who at the time of election was a member of one party, but decides to join another party represented in Parliament or an organisation that is political in nature.

But Padambo said the law will not affect the UDF MPs as they will not have joined DPP.

Put to him that Malawians who voted for the UDF MPs were not aware of an existent of such an agreement with DPP, Padambo said such a relationship was based on more than a piece of paper, but the conduct of the two political parties.

Chancellor College associate professor of law Edge Kanyongolo, who is a constitutional law expert, said in the actual interpretation of Section 65, UDF could not be deemed to have crossed the floor.

He said: “Section 65 does not cover the physical movement of an MP from one side to another. There are only two conditions under which a Member of Parliament can be in contravention of this section and that is if the member ceases to be a member of a party or joins another party represented in Parliament.

“If none of these conditions exist then the member is not in contravention. Whether the moving physically is done as a group does not arise.”