Malawi elections: The circus continues amid the sweats, Tippex, and the lies:

December 6, 2019 Janet Karim 33 Comments

Following the May 2019 elections, Malawi Electoral (MEC) chair Justice Jane Ansah, amid 147 complaints, declared President Peter Mutharika the winner. The President hastily sworn in, the Chair then went on Zodiak TV declaring the appropriateness of the work of the MEC.

Rotten: MEC chairperson Jane Ansah and her commissioners inlcuding her closest Jean Mathanga

In reaction to the electoral theft of the century, Malawians on both sides have demonstrated for and against the decision. Dr. Lazarus Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party led by and Dr. Saulos Chilima’s United Transformation Movement hurled the MEC and the Democratic Progressive Party to court, challenging the election result.

While the MEC and DPP have moved on as if there is nothing to see here and that Mutharika won the election fair and square, an empaneled Constitutional Court has been served a variety of information where lawyers for the two plaintiffs (MCP and UTM) have unearthed a coterie of in-plain-sight fraudulent activities.

For example, the court has been shown that there were 1,593,334 duplicate forms, 1,330,448 valid votes that were altered, 1,120,104 tally sheets that were presented, but had no signatures, 524,340 sheets also presented and accepted despite having Tipex therein, and 188,172 fake results sheets (unconventional).

But Sean Kampondeni’s recollection of Monday’s court hearings had MEC Chief Executive officer Alafandika in sweats and is very much entertaining as it was illuminating.

Kampondeni highlights how SC Msisha’s cross-examination succeeded in getting Alfandika to admit or acknowledge 7 key things:

1. MEC suspected before the elections that tippex might be used, and so they made it clear to presiding officers in advance that tippex should not be used.

Alfandika’s admission shows that presiding officers and constituency returning officers allowed the use of tipex; this was not do out of ignorance nor out of a belief that the use of tippex was allowed. They did it knowing that it was not allowed and having been told not to do it, making the use of tippex by them is not only irregular, but also intentional and malicious.

2. Before the elections, MEC sent Inspection Teams to polling centres to check that the centres were compliant to the standards MEC had set in advance, and yet the Inspection Teams were neither required to check for or confiscate any tippex found nor required to report on whether or not they found or confiscated tippex during the inspection.

Alfandika’s admission demonstrated that even though MEC anticipated in advance that some of its officers might be tempted to use tippex,  told its officers not to use tippex, and had the means and manpower to prevent the use of tippex, MEC nonetheless did not use those means or manpower to actually prevent the use of tippex.

3. Alfandika said a fact-finding investigation into the use of tippex was done by MEC officials into every place or incident whence tipexed results sheets emerged.

This admission showed that the MEC CEO was in direct contradiction with MEC Chair Justice Jane Ansah, whose June 24, 2019 Zodiak interview cited that no investigation was done by MEC at any point as to where the tippex came from and how it made its way onto official MEC documents countrywide. Either the MEC CEO and the MEC Chair, is misinformed or lying. It also shows a lack of coordination between the two central offices and lack of compliance with the statutes that define their working relationship.

Alfandika attempted to explain the discrepancy; however, whether Alfandika or Ansah are telling the truth, MEC was only interested in investigating the complaints about the usage of tippex no sooner than four weeks after it already announced the results, when the law requires the MEC to settle all complaints during election week and before announcing the results.

4. MEC was informed by the auditing firm BDO that there were “many” results sheets which they rejected because they had tippex on them, or because they had alterations, or because they had missing signatures, but MEC wrote official letters to BDO instructing the auditors to accept them.

Alfandika testimony showed four things:

a) MEC failed to take proactive steps to prevent the use of tippex and other irregularities before the elections; after the elections MEC was given an opportunity by the auditors to keep tipexed, unsigned, and altered results sheets out of its tabulation process, but instead MEC Commissioners and the CEO played an active and decisive role in ensuring the inclusion of such, making them complicit in the irregularities committed by MEC personnel at polling and constituency tally centres.

b) A high standard of results sheets integrity was initially upheld by BDO, but the MEC CEO and Commissioners had a very low standard of results sheets integrity and used their offices to order BDO to lower its standards by allowing results sheets that it had already deemed unacceptable.

c)  MEC at its worst was shown to have lied to the nation about the results’ compliance with international auditing standards, or at best, MEC hid from the nation the fact that many of the results sheets used to tabulate the final result had in fact failed to meet BDO’s international auditing standards.

d) When asked who wrote the letters to BDO to tell them to accept the substandard documents, Alfandika said it was he, which means that he is personally culpable for the acceptance of bad documents into an electoral process MEC assured Malawians would be watertight.

5. MEC officials allowed the use of tippex even in constituency tally centres that were not Teacher Development Centers.

This admission showed that Alfandika’s statement claiming that the tippex was used only in constituency tally centres that were located at TDCs, was factually incorrect. The importance of this is that if tippex had only been used at TDCs, that already have tippex in their stock, then the use of tippex can be regarded at circumstantial, but if the tippex was also used in locations where it is not ordinarily found, then it means its use was conspiratory and premeditated.

6. The MCP wrote the MEC on three successive time, to which there has been no official response.

The admission by MEC CEO shows that Justice Jane Ansah’s announcement to the nation that all madando had been addressed, was incorrect. Furthermore, Msiska showed that by announcing the results of the elections when there were still complaints unaddressed, MEC was violated the law which requires MEC to address all complaints before declaration of results. 

7. The BDO audit report highlights several anomalies. First, the cover letter states that the report was sent to both MEC and UNDP, yet MEC claims that only UNDP got the report on the dates indicated, and MEC did not get the report from BDO. but from UNDP, and only got it in July, which would mean that the UN Resident Coordinator inexplicably held the audit report hostage for over a month before submitting it to MEC.

Secondly, (and more importantly), the table of contents for the audit report indicates that there were over 11 pages in the report, but in the document that followed, only the first 7 pages were paginated,  while the rest of the pages inexplicably have no page numbers.

Furthermore, the bullet points on the ninth page of the audit report have missing numbers, going from point 3.2.2.3 to point 3.3 to 3.7, without any point 3.4, or 3.5, or 3.6.

Through Alfandika’s acknowledgement of these anomalies, highlights:

1.   MEC had the audit report as early as UNDP had it, but then misplaced it through negligence or hid it through deceit, or MEC didn’t have the report on time because the UN Resident Coordinator held thus interfered with MEC’s timeliness in disclosing it.

2.    Either the report was done unprofessionally, with page numbers missing or was tampered with maliciously by the replacement of paginated sheets from BDO with unpaginated sheets from elsewhere.

3.   The report was done negligently with bullet numbering errors or the sheets with the full list of bullet points was replaced with sheets that had missing bullet points. Whichever the case, the report at best shows that the report was not done with the level of professionalism that meets international standards, and at worst shows that the sound report that came from BDO was tampered with in-country.

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33 replies on “Malawi elections: The circus continues amid the sweats, Tippex, and the lies:”

  1. Kkkkkk che Karim, paja aku banja la a Mbekeyani munazolewela kukhala ku embassy. Mulira mokweza akatulutsa ruling ndithu. Your hatred is crowding your judgement

  2. The judges has already said that they will not be swayed or intimidated by public opinion. From the word go! The writer of this article has already shown that he has leaned in favor of the opposition (UTM/MCP) thereby compromising the objectivity of the article. In short he is trying to influence the court to buy his bogus analogies which unfortunately can’t sell.

    It is a fact that the majorities doesn’t want the DPP to be in government. However where they are missing the bus is the fact that our democratic laws stipulates that, in an election, the candidate with the highest votes will be declared a winner, this simply means that there are many pple who did not vote for DPP, unfortunately their votes were divided by the many parties that contested. One doesn’t need calculations to realise that if the votes for UTM n MCP were combined the results would have been the downfall of DPP.

    Both UTM and MCP knows the genesis of their failure -GREED. if they could have united and faced DPP as one the story could have been different!

    When all is said and done I see the majorities of people crying again MARK MY WORDS!!!

  3. A Chilima konzekani kupitiriza udindo wanu wa vice president. Apapa tisapite kutali ayi ku DPP mazi achita katondo. Ngakhale in sindine Jaji, koma mulandu wakomera zipani zotsutsa basi , mufune olomusafune ingoyambani kulongeza mamwado anuwo basi.Mwatinyera kokwana inu a DPP.2020 otsutsa awiriwa mmodzi alamula dzikolino. inu mmayesa Mulungu ndi mulamu wanu ?Inu opusa eti. Mwaphayipha alabino , komanso mwapha anthu ambiri osalakwa, mmaganiza kuti Mulungu azisekerera zimene , chamba eti, Kodi moyo wa anzanu mumautenga ngati osafunika eti , koma wanu, iiiiiiii, mukatero Lamulungu korona pakhosi , tikuoneni Mariya woyera , kkkkkkkkk, Mariya wake uti ? Kodi Mulungu mwamuyesa choseweresa eti , Mwina kapena inu muli ndi Mulungu wanu wokonda zakupha. Nthawi yafika abale anga mulandire chaulere chanu chimene munafesa.

  4. Mec went to inspect long before elections, did they notice that there were fake or duplicate forms? If the did not include tipex why later allow it to be used and why did mec announce results be dealing with cmplaint? Lets see if we have capable judge who can deliver what is right?

  5. Komatu mudzalira abale siyani khothi ndilomwe ligamule mulandu mosaoneke ngati kuti inu muli ndi nzeru kuposa ma Judge.Kodi kumalawi amayendetsa chisankho ndindani? Malamulo akuti chani?

  7. If one receives or buys a stollen item —he /she is deemed a thief — is detained for questioning—-in this case we are expecting Peter and the whole mec to face criminal charges if the verdict goes against them –‘period it will serve as a lesson to would be offenders world wide –‘I rest my case !!

  9. Mwapezeka azimai oyipa ngati simunaberekepo. a jini Namathanga inuyo mmemene mulili mo mumati munganamize amalawi, mwayenda pachabe . Malawi cannot be in ur hands for you to toss it out. Sukulu yake itiyo mudapita inu

    1. Bvuto munali azimai nokhanokha. mpaka azimayi 5 commissioners. musamale next time osmachulukitsa azimayi pamalo pomwe pafunika decision making ya mphamvu. Amai awawitsa dziko koma ubwino wake a gwida

  12. Allow me to attempt to explain why our respected Chief Elections Officer (MEC CEO) had an awkward ‘sweating’ hot flush during an earlier cross-examination session. (1) He is not a pathological liar, hence when he attempted to lie, his ‘sin’ found him out. (2) He is only human and hence he wanted to keep true to his earlier statement that ‘ he was not going to commit himself to giving answers to ‘tricky’ questions’. The Scriptures in the book of Numbers 32 vs 23 (NKJV) say, “But if you do not do so, then take note, you have sinned against the LORD; and be sure your sin WILL FIND YOU OUT”. There is a proverbial in the Chichewa which seems to agree with this Scripture and says, “COIPA CHIMATSATA MWINI”. (something like ‘the evil that you do follows the one that has done it’). If Jane Ansa, a self-proclaimed child of God had read and believed and obeyed Numbers 32 vs 23, she would have nothing to worry about, but now the ‘sin’ that she probably committed has caught up with her. The same applies to all MEC officials including all that probably received ‘dirty’ money in order to commit this sin against Malawians, little did they probably realise that it was a sin of injustice against GOD. Hence coipa chawatsatira and now it has catching up with them. Soon God Who has always listened to our ‘national anthem’ prayer points, will give His verdict and unfortunately or fortunately, no human being can forever escape the Creator’s justice system. Let’s wait and see. By the way, a very top senator Orji Uzor Kalu, a whip in the Federal Parliament of Nigeria’s Upper House who also belongs to President Muhammad Buhari’s Progressive Congress Party was as recently as yesterday found guilty of ‘pocketing’ US$19.6 million during the years he was governor. He hid his ‘sin’ for all these years, but the arm of unselective justice finally caught up with him and has been sentenced to twelve years in prison! And in Malawi we have top government officials who have ‘pocketed’ billions of Kwacha, some of them openly challenging the courts of law, claiming that even the courts have no power to prosecute them….can you imagine! Your sin will find you out, no matter what you call yourself, no matter who is protecting you. Numbers 32 vs 23 is applicable to every created homo sapiens.

  13. Mhhhhh a Janet Karim, mwasanduka liti lawyer or judge. Assumptions sawinitsa mulandu. How can 5002 polling centres have 1,120,000 tally sheets??

  14. Koma eeeeeh! MEC and DPP underestimated Malawians. Umbanda onse waonekera ng’amba. DPP your time is up. Start packing!!

  17. My fooot vyafika pa mwana wakana chigwada,kuli kuzumbwa na thukutira,,,kikikikikiki simunati eeeeeeeeee,hohohohohohohohoho kanthu akooooooo koma kumenekoooooo.Eish,maji yachita katondo mlamba wayamba kuzizwa,wawa,chule wazizwa uko mmaji ndimo wakukhala heheheheheheh,Mchenga ngunandi mpunga wachepa kutafuna kwavuta…whihihhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.

  19. Judge for yourself before the long arm of law judge you , no matter how much they could try to hide the truth, but the secret has it’s way to come out , KARMA knows the address and time

  20. The advancing of the case to court is good for Malawians to know what happens with their vote and activities that take place behind scenes. It has exposed the truth about how crooked some of our politicians are. Obviously, there may have been cash changing hands along the way, else all these would not happen for nothing. Tippex may have been bought and distributed by somebody outside MEC, but with blessings from MEC. Jane Ansah, as a seasoned Judge, was perhaps aware of possibility of backfiring and therefore honest enough on Tippex. MEC CEO is caught in the middle of happenings and trying to protect a favorite and paid up master instead of being as neutral as MEC is supposed to be.

  22. Madam Karim you are an extreme hater, biased journalist, probably recieving something from the opposition. You could have commented about how the opposition lawyers ran away from Chisi today!!! The man is extremely good in ICT!!!!

    1. @CHISI THE ICT EXPERT you are missing the point here. Ask those who are conversant with court proceedings. As a starter, all you have to know is that, when the witness is not cross-examined, it means the witness does not have any evidence to be cross-examined on or the evidence is as useless as nothing before the court. Ask the learned lawyers on this and you will know what was meant by not cross-examining Chisi.

    2. Not necessarily running away from him……..He has done extremely nothing to conquer Suleiman’s evidence….MUNTHU WABWINO BWINO akamakangana ndi wozelezeka kusiyanitsa kumavuta….munthu akayankhula zopanda pake tmangomusiya osmuyankha…nkuwona ngakhale Kaphale, Mbeta ndi Chokoto onse angomusiya.

      In fact, this is very embarassing to Chisi, Kaphale, Chokoto, Mbeta, MEC, DPP, Ansah, Mutharika and the entire ICT world…………no questions is a sign of shit dished in court.

    3. So when someone gives an opposing view, he or she is a hater? Oh yee of tunnel vision, mend your ways!

  24. Kanthu akoooooo!!! Kolani kolani…….this Janet sounds incomplete………with all these facts..WHERE ARE WE GOING???

    PEPANI, MWINA NDAFUNSA CHINYEZI M’BAFA kkkkkkkk

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