The quota system seeks to have an equal number of the first ten students from each of the districts of the landlocked country access to university selection.

Ironically, the AU aims at uniting and building coherent consensus on the African continent in all matters of governance, democracy and self-sustenance.

Mutharika said he was committed to ensuring the objectives of the continental body bore fruits beneficial to all Africans without discrimination when he took over chairmanship from Libyan leader Colonel Muamar Ghadaffi early this year.

The quota system disregards the normal on-merit system which has been practiced for some time. Mutharika told national television TVM last year that come rain or sunshine, he was determined the system comes back to stay and that Northerners were enjoying a bigger share of the university education and public sector employment.

“Northerners are very few and yet they are the ones who are in our universities in large numbers. I want this to change as they also contribute very little to the national GDP,” he said, attacking former Regional Governor for the DPP Harry Mkandawire who stood up against the discriminatory policy.

The three MPs argue they were representing the views of their constituents.

“It was instructed that I should stop considering myself a member of the party because I talked against the government on the quota system in Parliament,” said Hon. Reverend Christopher Ngwira of Mzimba Hora.

Another victim, Mzimba Luwerezi MP Hon. Dr. Bofomo Nyirenda suggested that if quota is anything to go by to make public services and opportunities equitable, then there was also need to adopt rotational presidency so that leaders from the North could also be accommodated.

Malawi has had three presidents, the first the late Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda from the Central region in Kasungu district, followed by Bakili Muluzi from the Southern district of Machinga, and incumbent Mutharika from Thyolo in the South.

“They said we have embarrassed the people from the North and that until we meet, I should not be holding any meetings in the name of the party,” explained Nyirenda. The suspension was delivered to the three from party second vice president Khumbo Kachali through regional governor for the North, Ancent Nkhata.

“A desk is not the right place from which to view the world,” Nyirenda told the local Nation newspaper. “People cheat the president that all is well when the opposite is true.”

Mzimba Solola MP Hon. Ackim Mwanza has also been suspended.

Early February, a former diplomat, top government official and ex-electoral commissioner Garnet Kamwambe was picked up by police in the Northern district of Karonga to answer charges of sedition. Kamwambe has just published the book, The Real State of Affairs in Malawi, which is a compilation of people’s views on the quota system.

Most of the contents are against the system, which was once dictated upon the country by Dr. Banda’s autocratic regime with devastating intellectual consequences.

Taken to Police Headquarters in Area 30 in the capital Lilongwe, Police Inspector General Peter Mukhito personally warned Kamwambe of trying to bring hate against the president. He denied the allegations and said he was simply bringing forth the views of Malawians of an unpopular and bad policy.

Commentator and political analyst, Chancellor College professor Blessings Chinsinga described the DPP move as not tolerant to dissenting views on which democracy strives on.

The courts recently ruled in favour of the system after two concerned Malawians took the matter for legal determination – not surprising after the president’s adamancy, say analysts.