Malawi Electoral Commission altered over 1 million votes, court hears

December 5, 2019 Wongani Chiuta - Nyasa Times 34 Comments

There were hair raising and jaw-dropping revelations on Wednesday  at the High Court of Malawi sitting as the Constitutional Court hearing the presidential elections nullification petition  when it was learnt  that the electoral body altered 1,330, 448 votes.

Apart from this, lawyer Khumbo Soko representing first petitioner and UTM Party presidential candidate Saulos Chilima managed to have  Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), the second respondent in the case,  second witness Henzily Munkhondya,admit that the electoral body used 1,593, 334 duplicate forms and that the entire exercise was a sham.

All this was in sharp contrast to an earlier attempt during the commencement of the trial by Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale that the affected votes were too little to have an impact on valid votes.

However, lawyer Soko managed to expose that MEC gave auditors the same forms to stamp and sign again and again while manipulating the results behind the auditors’ backs.

At some point, the  cross-examination with Munkhondya, who is the director of electoral services, went as follows:

Counsel Soko: Mr. Munkhondya, yesterday you told the court that you read the BDO report?

Munkhondya: That is correct.

Soko: Did you understand the contents of the report?

Munkhondya: I did.

Soko: Were one hundred per cent of the election results verified by BDO auditors?

Munkhondya: Yes, one hundred per cent of the results were verified by auditors.

Soko: But you said you read the report?

Munkhondya: Yes, I did.

Soko: If you did, you would have come across a passage – written by the auditors themselves – that says they did not verify all the results. Do you remember coming across such a passage?

Munkhondya: I do not.

Soko: OK. Let’s go to the file. Can you read paragraph 13 of the BDO report?

Munkhondya: “At the national tally centre, we did not verify all the results.”

Soko: Mr. Alfandika told the court that when MEC received the report, a management response was sent in writing to the auditors. Is that correct?

Munkhondya: That is correct.

Soko: And the auditors responded to MEC via email, is that correct?

Munkhondya: So I believe – since that correspondence was between the auditors and our controlling officer.

Soko: Can we go to another file. Now, read Mr. Alfandika’s letter to BDO.

Munkhondya: [reads] “We do not agree with your assertion -stated in paragraph 13 of your report – that you did not verify all the results. We hereby kindly request you to amend this paragraph.”

Soko: Now, can you read the response from BDO?

Munkhondya: [reads] “We cannot change the paragraph as it is the truth. MEC repeatedly gave us the same result sheets again and again to sign and stamp. In addition, MEC rebuffed our attempts to reconcile the figures and went ahead to post on the screen unreconciled and unverified figures.”

As if this was not enough, it was also exposed that over 1 million tally sheets had no signatures and that close to 600,000 votes were recorded on tippex sheets.

Meanwhile, one witness for MEC remains to be cross examined with the court being determined to wrap up hearing on Friday December 6, stressing that if push comes to shove the court will sit on Saturday December 7 to conclude the case.

In the case where President Peter Mutharika of Democratic Progressive Party, the declared winner, is the first respondent, Chilima and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) presidential hopeful Lazarus Chakwera are challenging the results of the presidential race citing irregularities, especially in the results management system.

Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :
Follow us in Twitter

34 replies on “Malawi Electoral Commission altered over 1 million votes, court hears”

  2. Here we go again, people are tired of defending an old fool called peter. Am afraid Dpp and mec will test their own medicine.

  3. At least we Know that there is One Big Liar at MEC….Ze results are being audited ….going through the Auditors on Zat table ….before being Displayed on ze Screen….No wonder you wanted the Auditors to Lie….

  6. THIS is TOATAL SHAME WHAT KIND OF ELECTIONS SO POORLY MANAGED WITH CRIMINAL MINDS BEHIND YOU HAVE LEARNT A LESSON IN A HARD WAY.MEC SHOULD BE DISBANDED AND RECRUIT PROFESSIONALS

  7. Let this not draw our attention away from the fact that a Cadet has been hammered with 7 good years of hard labor at our prestigious prisons. THIS IS IMPORTANT!! 🙁

  8. Hahahaaa shooting in the wind. How can you have over a million tally sheets? It means every voter had a tally sheet?

  9. In football, a team that does not win its way games and only relies on some home gains cannot never be successful and cannot win anything, unfortunately, this is the very same scenario in which MEC and DPP lawyers have found themselves in , relying on reexamination of their witnesses.

  10. WHY THE JUDGES ARE RESTRICTING MEC LAWYERS TO QUESTION THEIR CLIENTS AND YET MCP LAWYERS CAN ASK LEADING QUESTIONS AND ANY FORM OF QUESTIONS????

    1. lol. You and two other people. We the majority will vote for people who are still alive. Not that skeleton zombie

  15. Koma DPP ndi agalu ndithu. Lynch them. Campaign yonse ija kuti iwowo adzaphike napwiri lets redo the whole bloody thing including MPs and Counselors. Uwu ndi utsiru

  16. Where is jane ansah in this case? Is she hearing the case too that woman jane ansah in specks . I 😃justice mayemu jane ansah hereby declare Arthur Peter mutharika a what kkkkkķk and over his dead body was sworn in as Malawi president eish imagine all these kakas my foot😆😆😊😉chaka chake ndichino wina atchakomokeeeeeeh

    1. Mananjalo, the answer to your question is that Jane Ansa is busy enjoying the K2 billion that she received for declaring APM as winner. That’s a lot of money! Alufandika also got his billions, that is how DPP operates!

      1. Chiga if the lady Jane ansah was offered 2billion for the well job don by sir tippex professor Peter mutharika together with the mec to me it was not enough. And this mec is throwing me back in times of muluzi when radio presenters were adding up figures to the extent u couldn’t imagine ask Eunice chipangula from the polling centers to the tally center

  17. Shame and yet another writer said Soko was shooting anywhere without direction. KIKIKIKIKI mwanya nayo mwayiwona pie diagram

  18. So we had 1,593,334 duplicate forms and over 1 million tally sheets against only 5,002 polling centres? It looks like every voter had a form and tally sheet.

    1. AKULU MUSASOKONEZE ANTHU 1,593,334 duplicates forms(ILLEGALITY PROVED),1,000,000 votes affected, 600 unsigned tally sheets(illegality) WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT.THIS MAY BE TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR,JUST GO TO THE CHART AND UNDERSTAND

  20. People, is this not the same that made late Justice Mbendera to cry, I can deduce that this is MEC’s culture.

    1. AMEN THE LIGHT HAS CONQUERED THE DARKNESS.THE FUTURE MALAWI I PRAY IN JESUS NAME THE DARKNESS WILL NOT SUCCEED AND WE WILL SEE WITH OUR OWN NAKED EYES HOW THE DEVIL WILL BE CONQUERED FOREVER TO CREATE A NEW GENERATION NOT THE FOOLISHNESS ONE.

Comments are closed.