{"id":8390,"date":"2012-04-04T09:07:46","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T09:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=8390"},"modified":"2012-04-04T09:07:46","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T09:07:46","slug":"malawi-president-rejects-calls-from-faith-leaders-to-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/04\/04\/malawi-president-rejects-calls-from-faith-leaders-to-resign\/","title":{"rendered":"Malawi president rejects calls from faith leaders to resign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/bingu.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/bingu.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"bingu\" width=\"290\" height=\"174\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-7486\" \/><\/a>Blantyre, Malawi (ENInews). Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika on 22 March rejected calls from faith groups that he resign following a political and economic crisis that has rocked the southern African nation.<\/p>\n<p>A delegation of civil society organizations meeting at a national conference organized by the Public Affairs Committee (PAC) on 15 March demanded that Mutharika &#8220;resign honorably within 90 days or if he thinks he is still popular, he should call for a referendum within the 90 days. Failure to follow this will call for mass action.&#8221; Last year, the government cracked down on protesters demanding economic changes that would ease fuel and foreign-currency shortages.<\/p>\n<p>However, speaking during a World Water Day Commemoration in Mangochi, 220 km (137 miles) south of the commercial capital of Blantyre, Mutharika said he is still popular.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am not a quitter. I will continue to run this country until 2014. I will not step down because the constitution of this country mandates me to run for a full five year term,&#8221; Mutharika said. He was first elected in 2004 and is in his second term.<\/p>\n<p>PAC, an organization consisting of the Catholic Church, Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, Muslim Association of Malawi, Quadria Association Malawi and Pentecostal churches, insists it will present its communique to the president.<\/p>\n<p>Citing &#8220;signs in our society that point to a crisis in political, economic and constitutional governance,&#8221; PAC in a communique said it was &#8220;inspired by [a] prophetic mandate, realizing that God does not change the conditions of people unless the people themselves show commitment to change them.&#8221; The group said it &#8220;did a serious introspection and critical analysis based on hard questions that need to be addressed if we have to reclaim our future as a nation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mutharika said calls for his resignation were a non-starter as he was still loved by Malawians. He said even if he was wanted to run for a third term he would get votes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blantyre, Malawi (ENInews). Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika on 22 March rejected calls from faith groups that he resign following [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[281,220,1975],"class_list":["post-8390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dpp-3","tag-church","tag-democracy","tag-resign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390","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=8390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}