Ansah says handouts issue dominate elections ‘madando’

Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) says the issue of handouts during political campaign has dominated complaints on local government polls.

MEC chairperson Jane Ansah sad the pollster has directed those with the handouts complaints to the Registrar of Political Parties.

“Most of the complaints of the local government elections are related to Section 45 of the electoral laws which bans handouts.

“All complaints in this regard have been forwarded to the Registrar of Political Parties. This is the relevant body to prosecute the offence,” said Ansah.

She said the pollster 147 complaints for both parliamentary and local government.

Ansah said the results would be announced after all the complaints have been attended to.

In the parliamentary elections, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) got 62 members of Parliament (controlling 32 percent of the House), MCP got 55 members of Parliament (29 percent), United Democratic Front (UDF) got 10 members of Parliament (5 percent), UTM got four members of Parliament (2 percent), People’s Party (PP) got 5 seats (3 percent), Aford got one, with the remaining 55 seats taken by independents.