Malawi poll commissioners’ credibility damaged to manage fresh elections
Legal and governance experts have questioned the credibility of the embattled Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Jane Ansah and her fellow commissioners to manage the forcoming frsh presidential elections.
Electoral stakeholders told Ansah and commissioners at the National Elections Consultative Forum (Necof) meeting in Blantyre on Friday that they have no trust in the current electoral body.
The civil society organisations like the Church and Society of Livingstonia Synod of CCAP and opposition political parties took turns telling the MEC commissioners not to manage the forthcoming elections because they did not have the trust of the people.
UTM secretary general Patricia Kaliati actually told Ansah in the face that “even in a family where there is no trust, nothing works no matter how good one partner can be thereafter.”
Kaliati said political parties, save for governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, have no trust in the commission and must not continue doing anything in relation to the elections.
Electoral stakeholders also reminded the commissioners that the Public Appointment Committee of Parliament recommended to President Peter Mutharika to fire them for incompetence and lacking capacity to organise elections.
But Ansah irked the opposition when she said: “Is there any mad person here? Do you know the meaning of incapability?”
UTM Party director of publicity Joseph Chidanti Malunga censures her.
“Don’t display your arrogance when answering questions madam chair,” said Malunga.
Meanwhile, governance expert Henry Chingaipe said after the Constitutional Court found the current MEC grossly incompetent to manage elections the good governance of the elections will not be achieved because the entire commission is “still clinging to power.”
He said in quotes reported in the local press: “ I don’t see whether people found to be grossly incompetent can be expected to run the election and be trusted to manage the process well.
“I don’t think the aspect of good governance will be achieved as far as the current group of commissioners will run the election. The current group is against the Rule of Law. They filed a stay order and it was thrown out [by Supreme Court of Malawi] The Commission and the chairperson are resistsing the rule of law.”
Garton Kamchezera, a law professor at Chancellor College, a constituent college of the University of Malawi (Unima), said the commission, despite being led by judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal, does not understand and pay regards to what the Constitution requires in Section 12 that “those that exercise powers reated to the State can only sustain such powers on the basis of sustained trust.”
He said to continue exercising that, therefore, they need to sustain that trust.
“This set of commissioners is either so oblivious or they don’t care whether people have trust in them or not, which is a big problem,” Kamchezera said in quotes reported by The Nation daily newspaper on Tuesday.
But DPP spokesperson Nicholas Dausi said as a governing party, they felt MEC commissioners must carry on and make the necessary preparations for the fresh elections.
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MEC is competent. It’s tippexed parliamentary results are OK according to the same foolish judges who annulled the presidential polls results.
Eeeeeeeesh but this old bitch she have now closed the redline some one some where supposed to give her right treatment , she thought that she’s only one who’s capable for that work? My followers Malawan let deals with those aragonite people for the sake of our national to be cured from those climinals thugs
kkkkkk ndalama ikakometsetsa anthu amalorera kuitanidwa amisala kulorera kuonetsa ngati sakumva komanso ngati sakudziwa chomwe chikuchitika kkkk koma yaaa Ziliko chaka chino. Ndalama isakupangitseni kugontha mkuti mayi kkk musapepere chifukwa cha ndalama, mtendere wa mu mtima umaposa ndalama.
Gentleman, can a Lilian Patel really do a performance appraisal for proffesionals like Jane Ansah. Amangwetu
This will not end well for APM and Jane!
You are so right!!!
MEC competently handled the elections tats why we have MPS and Councillors who were elected and ushered into power by the same team of MEC . There is no issue here except for politics of hate and vengeance from Abusa aja a Chakwera . Meanwhile the President has not assented to the bills sent to him by the Legislature. He will send them back to the Speaker and parliament will have to debate over them and send them back again to the President for assenting
At first I thought Ansah is hanging tough out of mere stubbornness. But she seems to have a lot vested in personally running this coming election. I am willing to bet that, even if the Supreme Court upholds the ConCourt ruling, she will never resign. Clearly, she didn’t just botch the last elections; she actively rigged them.
This will not end very well for her, I am afraid.
It is not DPP that refused to fire MEC commissioners, it APM as President of the Republic. This is a sign of a functioning democracy and they is nothing evil about it. Unfortunately, Western style democracies are prone to this type of problem, a fight for dominance between the three arms of government. This is often the case when the different arms are controlled by different political parties or when the judiciary thinks it above the other arms of state. This chaos was Kamuzu prophecised when he said “multi-party ndi nkhondo”.
Jane Ansah for president.
Ofcourse only evil people can accept MEC to continue managing elections, what else do u expect from people who despise the truth?