Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
As the country awaits fresh presidential election in the next few weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that the May 19 2019 election remains nullified, violent incidences have been reported in the country which religious leaders have condemned and appealed for respect of human life.
“Every human life is sacred,” Public Affairs Committee (PAC), a mother body of all religions in Malawi formed in 1992 during the country’s political transition from one party to multiparty system of government, said in a statement dated Friday, May 8, after an alleged report on petrol bombing of a family in Lilongwe which claimed lives while some victims were terribly burnt.
“The incident is condemnable in strongest terms as it violates human rights and aims at intimidating the democratic contestation of ideas and at silencing alternative voices,” the PAC lamented in their statement signed by the chairperson Msgr. Dr. Patrick Thawale, Vicar General of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lilongwe and Publicity Secretary Bishop Dr. Gilford Emmanuel Matonga from the Evangelical Association.
The PAC members cautioned that the “barbaric, cowardly and uncivilized acts of violence manifest a sense of desperation as Malawi moves towards the fresh Presidential Election,” (and) the “heinous acts of political violence should have no space in Malawi’s democratic sphere.”
According to the religious leaders, an electoral violence took place recently during phase two of voter registration exercise and some people petrol-bombed United Transformation Movement (UTM) offices which led to “loss of lives of some of the victims” who were residing in the same building.
For this reason, they have called for investigations of the culprits saying, “PAC wishes to add its voice to calls for prompt and impartial investigations on acts of political violence so that perpetrators are held accountable for their actions without discrimination.”
“PAC calls for an open and inclusive dialogue in dealing with political disputes – a mechanism that has full support of all peace-loving Malawians. We also call on all citizens to remain law-abiding and eschew all forms of political violence,” the statement reads.
In continuation, “PAC calls upon security agencies to protect all citizens regardless of their political alignment.”
The co-signed statement appeals to all political leaders to desist from “political divides (and) to stop sponsoring acts of violence.”
“Police must show impartiality and professionalism in investigating and bringing to book all perpetrators irrespective of political affiliation,” PAC says.