National News

High Court clears Maulidi

The High Court in Mzuzu has cleared People’s Party (PP) general secretary Paul Maulidi and another PP official of electoral fraud allegations levelled against them by PP director of political affairs (North) Goodwin Mvula.

Mvula dragged the two, Maulidi and Dennis Moyo, to court in January, alleging that there was rigging at the primary elections at Mchengautuwa.

Maulidi: cleared
Cleared: Maulidi:

In an affidavit, Mvula claimed that non-party members and children voted in the primaries.

“There were a lot of irregularities at Sonda Polling Centre where, among others, non-party members, including kids, were allowed to vote contrary to the rules of the elections and there was no form of identification and the list of party members was not present at the polling centre which brings a lot of suspicion,” reads the affidavit.

But judge Redson Kapindu has dismissed the case, saying Mvula failed to prove that there were substantial irregularities in the elections that would have led to nullifying the primaries and calling for rerun.

He also said Mvula failed to utilise internal remedial measures in the party before taking the matter court.

“I hold the view that if the plaintiff had demonstrated that he had exhausted internal remedial measures and thus ensuring that the matter was ripe for judicial determination, this court would only have nullified the results of the People’s Party primary elections in Mchengautuwa West Ward in Mzuzu City and ordered a re-run, if there was sufficient proof, on balance of probabilities, that the nature of irregularities was such as would have substantially affected the ultimate outcome of the election,” reads the judgement by Kapindu.

Speaking in an interview  yesterday, Maulidi and Moyo’s lawyer, Christon Ghambi,    said politicians should learn to utilise party structures to solve problems other than rushing to court.

“They should be able to solve disputes within the party. This helps to unite people other than dragging each other to court,” said Ghambi.

Related Articles

Back to top button