US embassy cable - 05LILONGWE971

UNCLAS LILONGWE 000971 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/S MELINDA TABLER-STONE 
STATE FOR INR/AA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: MI, PGOV, KPOL, Political Issues 
SUBJECT: GOVERNMENT HITS BACK AT IMPEACHMENT SUPPORTERS 
 
1. (SBU) A number of opposition politicians have been 
arrested over the past two weeks in retaliation for their 
support of the effort to impeachment President Mutharika. 
While the arrests are apparently for legitimate crimes, the 
President has  openly admitted that the arrests a "tit for 
tat" response to the oppositions attempts to impeach him. 
 
2. (U) Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) MP Lucius 
Banda, who had presented the bill putting in place 
impeachment procedures, was arrested last week for forging a 
high school diploma in order to qualify for his parliamentary 
seat. Maxwell Milanzi, the UDF MP who put forward the motion 
to indict the president, was also arrested for covering up a 
previous arrest that should have made him ineligible for 
Parliament. Finally, UDF Spokesman, and former Minister of 
Education, Sam Mpasu was arrested on corruption charges after 
returning from a trip to Scotland last week.  All three were 
arrested, and then released on bail the same day. 
 
3. (SBU) Comment: The arrests are clearly politically 
motivated, as the President himself all but admitted in press 
statements on Monday, November 7. However, the charges 
against Banda and Milanzi seem to be legitimate, and both 
should be fairly easy to prove.  The Mpasu case is a 
different story, and should be much more difficult to pursue. 
 Though the arrests have been specifically targeted against 
the UDF's point men on impeachment, they have caused both 
opposition parties to take notice, and opposition MPs are 
becoming increasingly nervous that more arrests could follow. 
It appears unlikely to us that this campaign will target 
members from the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), which 
cooperated passively in the impeachment move.  The MCP does 
not hold the personal or political enmity toward Mutharika 
that UDF does, and Mutharika continues to woo both the party 
leadership and individual members.   (End Comment). 
GILMOUR