Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika told the police to collect as much as 5 million kwacha ($33,160) from any organization planning demonstrates in case there are damages, and called on his party supporters to protect him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care whether this is constitutional or not,\u201d Mutharika told a rally yesterday in the commercial capital, Blantyre, referring to the payments. \u201cI am leaving my critics in your hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malawi\u2019s Council for Non-Governmental Organizations warned Mutharika that they would organize protests if he didn\u2019t move to ease a fuel shortage and tackle governance issues, the Nation reported on Feb. 24, citing the council\u2019s chairman, Voice Mhone. Ten days earlier, police blocked a demonstration against the fuel shortages and arrested the organizers.<\/p>\n
Mutharika called on members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party \u201cto bring discipline to this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been patient for the last seven years and people think I am a fool,\u201d the president said. \u201cDo you think I am a fool? I have never been a fool, I am not a fool and I don\u2019t intend to become a fool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Civil society organizations condemned Mutharika for inciting violence. Rafiq Hajat, chief executive officer of the Institute for Policy Interaction told Joy radio station today that there will be chaos if DPP supporters heed the president\u2019s call.<\/p>\n
To contact the reporter on this story: Frank Jomo in Blantyre via Johannesburg at fjomo@bloomberg.net.<\/p>\n
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika told the police to collect as much as 5 million kwacha ($33,160) from any organization […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}