Malawi Electoral Commission faces angry stakeholders at Necof over ‘electoral shenanigans’

Embattled Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) commissioners and officials are Wednesday, October 31 facing angry electoral stakeholders over the missing but found crucial biometric voter registration kit.

MEC chairperson Jane Ansah has confirmed that the meeting, to brief political parties and other stakeholders on the missing voter registration kit, will take place in Lilongwe.

The meeting comes amid calls from Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) for MEC chairperson Ansah to resign for alleged negligence.

HRDC chairperson Timothy Mtambo said: “We cannot trust them at all. It is about trust. We cannot even trust them that they are saying the truth when they are saying it had no information.”

Main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) spokesperson Maurice Munthali said they will be demanding the immediate resignation of Ansah and her team.

“We will not accept anything apart from the resignation of Ansah and the other commissioners. The MEC chair should just announce her resignation at the meeting,” said Munthali.

He said the party has lost trust in MEC over the issue.

“We are not going to be convinced on anything apart from their resignations. The commission has lost credibility. Things are now out of hand. We know the sinister plans behind the missing kit,” said an angry sounding Munthali, setting the tone for tomorrow’s meeting.

Former vice president Cassim Chilumpha suggested another independent pollster should be hired to work with MEC on how best to handle the 2019 elections, saying the Malawi pollster has completely lost credibility.

But ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson Nicholas Dausi has asked for calm, saying there was need to listen to MEC commissioners during the National Electoral Consultative Forum (Necof).

“We should hear them first before making any conclusion,” advised Dausi.

Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn) chairman Steve Duwa said resignation of Ansah and the other commissioners would negatively affect preparations for the elections to be held in May, 2019.

Ansah and the other commissioners are under intense fire after the biometric voter registration kit went missing and was found in a cargo train in Mozambique.

A few days later, a laptop computer used to record voter registration data went missing in Mzuzu and the police are yet to recover it.

The rigging concerns come against a background of remarks by Vice-President Saulos Chilima during the launch of the United Transformation Movement (UTM) in Lilongwe in July that there was a ‘spy machine’ to be used for vote rigging.