Catholic Church wants violent parties disqualified
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), which is under the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM), has appealed to the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to disqualify candidates in the May 20 Tripartite Elections proven to be perpetrating violence.
In a statement released yesterday, CCJP national secretary Chris Chisoni was reacting to the acts of violence that resulted in loss of lives in Thyolo-Goliati and the beating of an opposition politician in Blantyre on Monday night on politically motivated reasons.
“We call upon Malawi Electoral Commission to find ways of disciplining parties in a very tangible way, including disqualifying potential candidates, if indeed proven to have perpetrated political violence.
“Ours, therefore, is a call to the Malawi Electoral Commission to make sure that measures are put in place and enforced to allow parties to comply with best standards of conducting their political rallies. We also appeal for justice in such cases since we believe in the saying, ‘where there is no justice, there is no peace’,” reads the statement.
CCJP also called on the youth to avoid being used by politicians as agents of violence, adding that the right to life and safety supersedes the right to political association and assembly to the extent that no amount of political differences and verbal provocation should lead to any acts of violence and sudden deaths or wounding of any person.
“In view of this, we call upon the youth to desist from being used by barbaric politicians. We need to love our political parties, yes, but we need not be zealots and blind loyalists even at the expense of our brothers or sisters’ lives,” it adds.
