By Cathy Maulidi
Barely five months before Malawi goes to the polls, opposition political parties still hold firm to their distrust in Malawi Electoral Commission’s (Mec) management of the electoral process thus far.
They say Mec’s continued disregard of their grievances casts a shadow of doubt on the credibility of the elections in September.
We interviewed Directors of Elections for the opposition political parties – UTM, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), UTM and United Democratic Front (UDF) – on their assessment of the process at this stage.
Each one of them has expressed dissatisfaction with Mec’s handling of their grievances todate and feared that the elections have been undermined.
In response, Mec says it stands ready to engage the parties on any concerns they may have.
For the ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP), Mec has so far done an excellent job “in organising, supervising, and managing the electoral process”.
We have learnt that recently, opposition political parties again penned Mec chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja, demanding that the elections body should address their long-held grievances, which they believe Mec has been ignoring all along.
UTM’s Director of Elections Bright Kawaga said from the perspective of the UTM, Mec has not been sincere in its conduct.
“In most cases, Mec is playing hide and seek in the way they are handling election preparations.
“We have through the Centre for Multiparty Democracy and Democracy Works Foundation, had interface meetings to raise issues that we felt are absurd. Instead, Mec would tell this today and an hour later they come up with something different,” Kawaga said.
He said, for instance, they asked Mec to allow political parties to have an independent audit of the whole process of registration, considering that when they brought in the Election Management Device (EMD) they had agreed that they would give the parties an opportunity to be part of the process.
“They promised that we would be part of the process when they will be deleting the names of those who were registered during the pilot of voters exercise. Instead, Mec proceeded to install a new software in the system without engaging the political parties, which is suspicious,” Kawaga said.
He said Mec had also previously assured that the coming elections will be transmitted manually as it was in 2020, only for Mec to change to hybrid transmission.
“As UTM, all we demand is that we should be allowed to have the independent audit of the system, to have manually transmitted results and for Mec to be open for consultation as it was before [during Justice Chifundo Kachali’s time],” Kawaga said.
DPP’s Director of Elections, Jean Mathanga, a previous Mec Commissioner, shared similar concerns.
She said Mec’s moves to deny the political parties an audit of the system leaves many questions.
“We also requested the commission to come out clearly on why it seems to be changing its own decisions from doing a manual transmission of results and now trying to push for the hybrid system of transmitting results as it was done in 2019 and 2014.
“The decision to go for manual transmission in 2020 was as a result of issues that made Malawians not trust hybrid transmission of results. We call upon the Commission to come out openly as to why it wants to make this surprise contradiction of its own decisions,” Mathanga said.
UDF’s Director of Elections Yusufuh Sambo said opposition political parties have written Mec individually and collectively a number of times to rectify a range of issues but Mec has always ignored them.
“Political parties are the main players in these elections, so if Mec opts to ignore us, that is a very sad indicator that Mec will not execute its task desirably.
“We as political parties expect Mec to have a listening ear to what we raise at each particular stage, instead of allowing those concerns to accumulate,” Sambo said.
He said UDF is against hybrid transmission of results because such a system is prone to manipulation.
“Actually Mec has let us down big time, hence the trust is now gone. We [opposition parties] are yet to meet and discuss on the way forward to implement Plan B. We will assemble very strong legal team to fight this battle,” he said.
In a response we have seen to the political parties’ recent letter, Mtalimanja said Mec provided ample voter registration time.
Regarding results management, Mtalimanja says Mec will have a system that will be guided by the need to ensure efficiency, credibility, probity and verification based on the 2023 Elections Act.
She adds that the legal processes for managing physical results records at all tally centres will be followed and that party and candidate representatives will have unimpeded observation rights as they will be allowed to sign results records, and receive copies at each stage.
“The Election Management System will only help enhance efficiency in results transmission,” reads the letter.
The Commission has expressed reservations regarding a no-scope independent ICT audit in the manner that opposition political parties have been calling for.
It says such an unframed audit presents legitimate security concerns that may affect the integrity of the system as well as the potential risk of the violation of the intellectual property rights of the technology owners.
“Upon clear and specific request for a scoped audit being submitted, the Commission will consider such a request.
“The above notwithstanding, the Commission reiterates its position that stakeholders are at liberty to inspect and verify the voter’s register once it is made available for inspection in terms of section 21 of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections Act, 2023,” Mtalimanja said.
Mec’s spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa said:
“We are confident that the measures we have put in place ensure a transparent and inclusive electoral process.
“If there are any further questions or unresolved issues, we encourage the parties, and any other concerned stakeholders, to engage directly with the Mec. Our doors remain open, and we are always ready to clarify any issues related to the electoral processes.”
For MCP, Mec has so far demonstrated that it is an autonomous body, transparent and credible, according to the party’s Secretary General, Richard Chimwendo Banda.
“We believe that MEC has so far done a topnotch job in organising, supervising, and managing the electoral process.
“We, however, want to underscore that credible, free, fair and transparent elections can only be achieved if the main stakeholders assist the institution with credible information rather than propagating grapevine stories that have potential to hamstring the operations of Mec.
“At the end of the day Mec can only strengthen constitutional democracy if we work together,” Chimwendo said.
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