By Vincent Gunde
The Inter-Faith Forum for Peace, Justice and Dialogue (IFPJD) has called upon all relevant authorities and stakeholders precisely the MCP government to immediately address commodity prices concerns without allowing chaos from the citizenry in response to this sad and unsafe situation.
The IFPJD says commodity prices have badly and heavily risen up and become unaffordable to every Malawian, people have no alternative means of survival, people are angry because they are hungry saying their constitutional rights are in total breach.
The Forum has noted which a great concern that nobody seems accountable at all to the people that are governed on trust, there is no equality at all observing that those in authority have become more equal than the rest.
In a statement dated 20th February, 2025 signed by its Secretary General Bishop Dr. Damson Mchenga, the IFPJD has condemned the secret move and plan to introduce the Age Limit Bill in the current sitting of Parliament describing this as very dangerous, destructive and retrogressive tool against the country’s democracy.
The IFPJD says the acts of introducing Age Limit Bill are capable of causing uncalled for disagreements, violence, and disunity in the August House and indeed the whole country recommending the acts to be stopped by any people or groupings that are planning, funding or working on this mischievous scheme.
The Forum says the Malawi Electoral Commission(Mec) has a crucial role to conduct a free, fair, transparent and credible 16th September, 2025 General Elections devoid of any irregularities whatsoever and to ensuring that it is an independent Umpire.
It says in its previous statement, it presented concerns over the electoral process from different groups of people in the country, but unfortunately, the Forum is continuing receiving concerns on the way the Mec conducted voter registration processes.
The IFPJD has expressed fears that many people still complain and believe that the process was conducted to favor a single electoral player-the Ruling MCP describing this as unwelcome and bias in any democratic society advising Mec to reorganize their conduct to earn the lost trust of many Malawians and the international community.
The Forum says any election results that lack transparency, fairness and credibility is a catalyst of violence and civil instability against a democratic society calling upon the Mec to heed the public’s concern about the introduction and use of the Smartmatic Machine or the use of other electronic election aiding machines.
“The fact that in other countries the Smartmatic machine has become the cause of tensions between the Ruling Party and Opposition Parties after releasing election results, Malawians do not trust the operations of this machine, there’s need for citizens to be given adequate time and civic education to understand how the machine operates,” reads the statement in part.
The Forum has also registered its concern over the political terrain or landscape in the country that it is slowly becoming intolerable observing that Section 65 is no longer applied to Members of Parliament and all political parties are not avoiding the use of handouts.
The IFPJD has finally commended to government that all Malawians be allowed to enjoy their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech by commenting on issues that affect their daily lives including the recently made SONA by President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera saying all threats and witch-hunting acts and practices against those exercising their freedom in this regard or any other, is a dangerous Cancer capable of killing the country’s democracy.
