Vote jolt for M.P.s

Press, 5 July 1983, Page 10

Vote jolt for M.P.s

NZPA Blantyre More than two-thirds of the members of Parliament in Malawi, a one-party State, were defeated in two days of voting last week, the first General Election in five years. The voting, amid speculation that the President-for-Life, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, is preparing the former British protectorate for selection of a successor, suggested widespread disaffection with the ruling

Malawi Congress Party. Dr Banda is officially listed as 77 years old, but is believed to be in his 80s. Despite his excellent health, Western lending institutions have been pressing him to set up a formal succession process so that the country’s modest success story can continue, diplomats and banking sources say. No figures on the voter turn-out, also considered a barometer of support for Dr Banda, were available yesterday.

All candidates were members of the party, approved before the voting by Dr Banda. But in some constituencies voters had as many as five candidates to choose from, giving them their widest choice since independence. In the last election, in 1978, a third of Parliament was voted out. Twenty members of Parliament were defeated, and 40 others were not even nominated to stand for the poll. All Cabinet Ministers were returned.