Fresh anti-Ansah demos on Friday: ‘Mysterious deaths’ of electoral officials shock HRDC

The civil society organisations (CSOs) under the banner of Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) have announced fresh demonstrations to be held on Friday July 19 to press for the resignation of Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Justice Jane Ansah.

HRDC Chairperson, Timothy Mtambo (L), Vice Chairperson, Gift Trapence (C) and member Luke Tembo: Anti-Ansah demos on Friday

HRDC chairperson Timothy Mtambo said the demonstrations will be nationwide on Friday and that from next week they will be held every Tuesday and Friday until, steps down.

“We want to remind all Malawians that our demonstrations are peaceful and not meant to target businesses, individuals and organisations,” Mtambo told reporters in Lilongwe.

Flanked by HRDC vice chairperson Gift Trapence, human rights defenders Billy Mayaya and Dorothy Ngoma, Mtambo said the grouping’s primary focus is “to restore Malawi’s destiny through electoral justice. We want Jane Ansah to resign.”

In his comments, Trapence said the activist are aware that the Ansah-led electoral commission continue to bastardise the elections through a coordinated effort disguised as an affidavit solicitation process in many districts “in which opaque meetings are being held, sometimes in the dead of night, with election presiding officers allegedly being forced to retroactively append signatures to, thus certifying after the fact, vote tally documents.”

He continued: “This, shockingly, is in spite of MEC’s own categorical insistence that election-related documentation had duly followed all procedural stipulations as required by law before the announcement of the final official results, and so has been the position of MEC even during the ongoing court proceedings.

The HRDC have also registered its disappointment and shock over mysterious deaths of presiding officers and persons connected to the alleged fraudulent elections over the past week.

Trapence said the death toll of persons of interest in different aspect of the contested elected has reached six, saying the people have died “under strange circumstances.”

He said MEC working with the help of the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is working on “other nefarious processes” to counter the due process of the law in the elections case.

Trapence said there has been inaction from Police to establish the cause of the mysterious deaths.

HRDC said they will continue to press for the resignation of Ansah whom they accuse of messing up the 2019 Tripartite Elections.

Ansah,  who is also a judge of the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal, is on record as having said the Constitutional Court hearing a petition for the nullification of the presidential race in the May 21 Tripartite Elections will determine if she was wrong.

She has refused to step down and said she is leading “a normal life.”

Ansah has become the second MEC chairperson to face resignation calls after the late William Hanjahanja who tendered his resignation in May 1999 amid pressure from electoral stakeholders.

Then president Bakili Muluzi replaced Hanjahanja, who cited health grounds as reasons for his resignation within weeks to the 1999 elections, with Supreme Court Judge James Kalaile.

Stakeholders accused Hanjahanja of poor leadership, but the commission said medical doctors had given him a two-week bed rest after treating him for malaria and high blood pressure.

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Mwananyanian
Mwananyanian
4 years ago

The lack of consistence in Mtambo’s approach is so blatantly here: on one hand he says the demos are not meant to target anyone in particular, and yet on the other hand, he insists these demos are meant to force Judge Ansah out of her position.
So disingenuous.
Thinking gets cloudy when people are getting tired. Ditto when they are lying.

Wakuba
Wakuba
4 years ago

DPP and MEC are worse than The Italian Mafia

Acapulco
Acapulco
4 years ago

I urge the Demo organisers to stop exploiting the underemployed Malawians. How can grown up men & women march for something as stupid as mec chairs resignation?

M'Malawi
M'Malawi
4 years ago
Reply to  Acapulco

The underemployed are being exploited by your Tippex President and government. By the way, they are old enough to decide on their own. It is also wrong to assume that all people that are going for the demos are underemployed, NOT ANYMORE zinthu zasintha. I am well employed staying in low density area and am going for the demos to kick out criminality being promoted by DPP.

tman
4 years ago

The whole demostrations for a single lady. Then she tells you off.Leading a normal life,VINDERE CHOMENE .Zichezani ndi akazi anu

Patrick Phiri
Patrick Phiri
4 years ago

These thieves of AIDS money should stop bothering us. Their own hands are not clean afterall.

nun
nun
4 years ago
Reply to  Patrick Phiri

Is your Tippex president clean?

Central
Central
4 years ago

Now there are some leads towards the reasons why some misguided women were ‘mourning’ a pseudo funeral in the name of ‘they were to openly show they were siding with Jane Ansah! Based on the revelations from the CSOs I am made to believe that the pseudo mourners did all they did upon knowing that lives of some six presiding officers plus that of a suspect [Sailesi Kampango] who transferred Chilima’s name to Chizumulu were terminated!! Too sad indeed that innocent people have faced mysterious occurrences and are now sent into eternity because somebody loves a certain position and money… Read more »

linda
4 years ago

If I were Jane Ansah, I would have just resigned now for the sake of the country’s peace. After all, this is not a life time post for her, truthfully in 2024 she’ll not still be the MEC boss if at all she will get there.

Noxy
4 years ago

Mwatikwana mulibe zina zochita? Basi kwachela muja tizingomva za HRDC basi.Give us a break find something else to do.We are millions in this country and don’t speak as if you are representing us.

Khudze mkuyabwe
Khudze mkuyabwe
4 years ago
Reply to  Noxy

Khalachete ulibe nzelu

Mandado@147
Mandado@147
4 years ago

The question is why is the mysterious death not Jane, Alfandika or any of the corrupt commissioners (if there’s any) just poor juniors ? Did greed, poverty or envy self kill them or something more sinister like albino killings? I rest my case. It in not in my nature to wish people bad. However may their soul rest in peace or better yet pay for their crimes in hell and take their masters pretty soon KKKKKK

President Mkango Lion Manthakanjenjemereza
President Mkango Lion Manthakanjenjemereza
4 years ago

Mayi Jane Malemu Ansah, Tapumani otherwise you can die from cardiac arrest, BP, even should it come to worst, these people can harm you. I was in Rwanda, Kigali when the genocide was starting it started like what is happening in Malawi now, so watch out.

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