The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has postponed vigils that were expected to happen on Monday at Parliament Building with the aim of forcing the Members of Parliament (MPs) to pass electoral reforms bills.
Speaking at a press briefing this afternoon, chairperson of the group Timothy Mtambo said they have postponed the vigils to Tuesday because they want to allow the MPs tomorrow to re-table the Constitutional Amendment Bill which was shot down last week.
“The MPs were given 21 days by the court and the last day is tomorrow so we don’t want to disturb them because they will find some excuses that’s why we have postponed the demonstrations.
“I want to assure the MPs if they fail to pass the electoral bills tomorrow we will hold vigils at Parliament starting from Thursday and we will not stop until they do what Malawians want,” Mtambo said.
Mtambo further added that HRDC is aware of the plans of Democratic Progressive Party MPs who want to make sure the bills are not passed in Parliament.
“I want to warn them that if they do so we will hold demonstrations in their Constituencies,” Mtambo said.
Last week, Minister of Information Mark Botomani demanded Mtambo to apologise for saying that the MPs were shouting at the HRDC leader and his deputy Gift Trapence when the two visited Parliament.
In his response, Mtambo said he will not apologise to the MPs but are the ones that need to apologise because they were behaving like babies in Parliament.
