Police fired teargas to break up a crowd of 5,000 anti-corruption protesters as they marched to present a petition to government officials in Malawi’s capital Liongwe on Friday.
Protesters were marching to municipal offices when police fired teargas to disperse the crowd, telling local media that the protest had turned rowdy.
Protest leader Joshua Chisa Mbele, who heads the watchdog group Citizens Against Impunity and Corruption, accused the police of heavy-handedness.
“The protest was generally peaceful. The only disappointment was with the teargas that the police used. We are yet to establish what provoked the police to fire the teargas,” Mbele told AFP after the protestors had delivered their petition to the city council’s chief.
He said the next march by the group will spe-cifically target corrupt individuals in their homes.
“Today we were marching against the district council, tomorrow we will be marching against the perpetrators of corruption. We are aiming to visit all the people that are colluding to steal public money,” he said.
Friday’s protests were the largest since President Lazarus Chakwera won elections in June 2020 on the promise of eradicating corruption.
In January he sacked seven of his minister over graft claims, but has struggled to win public confi-dence that he’s making headway in cleaning up gov-ernment. Unemployed school-leaver Rebecca Banda said she joined the protest to show her anger at the gov-ernment’s tone deaf attitude.
“This government just doesn’t care about us. Look, even the issue of corruption, they are dragging their feet because they all benefit,” she said. “They are in government to get rich and not to serve Malawians.”—APP
