PAC for scrutiny of presidential hopefuls
The Public Affairs Committee (PAC) has said it is time Malawians started demanding what presidential hopefuls should do for them in both political and economic governance.
PAC acting chairperson Sheikh Imuran Shereef Mahomed, opening the committee’s annual general meeting in the commercial city of Blantyre today (Wednesday), said presidential candidates have always been telling Malawians what they want to do for them.
Mahomed said PAC, a civil society, interfaith organisation made up of the main Protestant, Catholic and Muslim faith groups in Malawi, will work on both demand and supply side of the electoral process to realise transformative leadership.
Said Mahomed: “The issues raised with presidential candidates will require specific time-frames when they can deal with them; so that those who win in 2014 should account to the public on the promises made during interface discussions.
“The office of the president should not just go with a blank cheque. This [new] approach will help us to have benchmarks for follow-up with our future presidents.”
He said PAC cannot fail to change the political and economic landscape it they were able to change the political system 20 years ago from one party system of government to multiparty.
He said to achieve this, members attending the AGM currently under way must ensure that they elect a new executive committee members that are not involved in partisan politics.
He said it has been noted previously that when PAC members support specific political parties, the organisation has suffered massively and even development partners have run away.
Mahomed said: “The most difficult situations we have witnessed in PAC is where the board gets divided and confidential issues go into the [news] papers. This should not be repeated.”
Making a presentation on political governance, Chancellor College-based law professor Edge Kanyongolo said the country’s leaders, who hold power on trust, must be accountable, responsive, transparent and allow people from where their power derives from to question their decisions.
He said governance requires political leaders to respect human rights and allow the public access to information they hold on their behalf.
Kanyongolo said on political governance, there has been slow progress with occasional backslides, but no prospective of reversal of the fundamentals.
He said there is also inability to reduce donor dependency, predicting that the ruling elite is likely going to centralise power and shrink the space for non state actors.
—Read full story in The Nation tomorrow (Thursday)
