Blantyre City South East constituency legislator Sameer Suleman said he does regret being suspended by second Deputy Speaker of Parliament Aisha Adams for fighting against a member of Parliament for Zomba Chisi, Mark Botomani in the house.
Misunderstanding erupted between the two DPP legislators following social media reports that member for Chitipa South Welani Chilenga is planning to move a motion on presidency and parliamentarians age limit.
According to the report which we have seen, the Bill is expected to prescribe a maximum age limit for persons to be qualified for nomination into the Office of the State President, First Vice-President and/or Second Vice-President as well as a member of Parliament, by amending section 80 6(b) of the Constitution for the Presidency and Section 51(1) for a member of Parliament respectively.
It reads: “considering that the office of the State President, First Vice President and Second Vice President and Members of Parliament, are very demand and stressful; and bearing in mind the need for more energetic office holders, this house resolves that a private members bill be introduced in this House to prescribe a minimum age limit for persons to be qualified for nomination into those Offices”.
The noise on the issue grew on the side of the opposition that escalated into a physical battle as Sulemani left his sit to fight Botoman.
“I went to Honorable Chilenga who sits closer to Honorable Botomani to ask him to withdraw the age limit bill because it targets a certain person but I was surprised to see Honorable Botomani entangled himself into that discussion and that did not please myself and we started exchanging bad word” said Sulemani
However, Adam intervened by suspending the house for 20 minutes and on return she slapped a punishment to Sulemani who has been suspended from now until end of next parliamentary meeting for repeating the same for the third time while Botomani has been suspended for the next two days for defying standing orders that demands Parliamentarians to sit when the speaker rises.
But when asked if he regrets his actions, Suleman said: “No I don’t and I’ll never regret for my actions, that’s me and I will always react. You should understand that people react differently and that’s how I react, nothing bad, I don’t regret it and I would react the same if it happens again”
On his part, Leader of the House Richard Chimwendo Banda blamed the DPP for bringing the House into disrepute.
“It’s very unfortunate, very shameful and as the leader of the house I need to apologize to malawians for what has happened I know is a member of the DPP who was fighting fellow DPP member, but because it has happened in this house we need to apologize to malawians” Chimwendo Banda explained
He added “It’s very unfortunate because as honorable members we suppose to display character that shows that we are honorable. This is the third time honorable Sulemani behave this way, and this has brought shame to the whole house”
Chimwendo Banda has further requested the DPP to sit down and resolve their differences to avoid a repeat of such things.
But in response, DPP Spokesperson Shadreck Namalomba denied the accusations by the Leader, alleging that the differences are being fueled by the MCP behind the scenes.
