Founded 26 May 1964 Seats 193 | New session started 9 June 2014 | |
 | ||
Type Lower House
(de facto Unicameral) Speaker Richard Msowoya, MCP
Since 16 June 2014 Political groups DPP (50)
MCP (48)
PP (26)
UDF (14)
AFORD (1)
CCP (1)
Independent (52)
Vacant (1) | ||
The National Assembly of Malawi is the supreme legislative body in the nation. It is situated on Capital Hill, Lilongwe along Presidential Way. The National Assembly alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in Malawi. At its head is the Speaker of the House who is elected by his or her peers. Since June 2014 the Speaker is Richard Msowoya.
The 1994 Constitution provided for a Senate but Parliament repealed it. Malawi has a has therefore unicameral legislative body as only the latter is functional. Its composition consists of Members of Parliament from each constituency who are more commonly addressed as "Members of Parliament" or "MP's". The National Assembly has 193 members who are directly elected in single member constituencies using the simple majority (or first-past-the-post) system and serve five-year terms.
Current Parliament
The current parliament was inaugurated on 9 June 2014 after the 2014 general election. No party managed to secure a majority in the house. Two by-elections are expected to be held for the Thyolo East and Blantyre North constituencies. Peter Mutharika won the presidential election and therefore cannot serve the former constituency while a Malawi Congress Party candidate died prior to the election in the latter.