The editorial in one of the leading Malawi dailies, The Nation, has strongly condemned the Malawi Police Service (MPS) over “events that unfolded in Lilongwe yesterday where hoodlums brandishing pangas and other objects took the law into their own hands to foil planned demonstrations” in full view of the Police.
The multi-award winning paper said what was particularly appalling and shameful was the behaviour of the police who were spectators in the “horror show; abdicating their sworn responsibilities by allowing unattested warlord-style gangs in gory masks to violently takeover the capital city and dispense their own twisted brand of crowd control.
“Where these thugs got the courage to display the sort of power and authority they showed yesterday is probably the most expensive question of the day whose answer could one day be as bloody as it is excessively and illegally arrogant.
“The paper also found the Lilongwe District Council ” guilty of willful negligence of its duties” for playing games with the rights of those who informed it of their intention to hold protests in good time.
The Nation reasoned that: “Regardless of whether their grievances are valid or not, opposition political parties and civil society organisations that planned the protests to air out voter registration and electoral management concerns had a constitutional right to freely express their grievances, including demonstrating to push for the removal, rightly or wrongly, of some officials at the centre of the electoral administration process who they believe are conflicted.”
The publication fears that what happened yesterday, if left untamed, could be a chilling harbinger of what may be the bloodiest election over in Malawi.
” Is that the legacy President Lazarus Chakwera wants imprinted for eternity in the nation’s history books? If not, then the President must put Minister of Homeland Security Ken Zikhale Ngomaand Inspection General of Police Meriye Yolamu on notice.”
