Malawi polls were manipulated, IT expert demonstrate evidence in court

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) final witness Information Technology (IT) expert Daud Suleman on Friday told the court with evidential demonstration  that May 21 presidential elections results were manipulated by “ghost user” uploaded data  results management system and that Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Jane Ansah rushed to announce the results before they were 100 percent processed by the Results Management System (RMS).

During stimulation before the panel of five judges of the High Courtt sitting in Lilongwe as a Constitutional Court, Suleman demonstrated how the MEC system allowed unkown users to enter into the system capturing and approving results.

“According to the system database, three people were Mr F Chimwaza, Muhabi Chisi and a ghost user who updated the results into MEC system and also another uknown person who approved Dowa East constituency presidential results. This still happens despite the system showing that IT officers captured the results and were audited,” said Suleman.

He said that this was nececiated by having one computer kit being used by two different person at two different places at the same time which is impossible in normal circumstances.

“The kit was in Thyolo and Mulanje and was involved in results manipulation,” he said.

This, according to Suleman, was proved by way of time difference during when the results were being entered and processed in the system.

During simulation, it was discovered that a normal parten of entering results into the system by officials could take about 2.1 minutes against what showed in MEC system that it took only milliseconds.

“What it means is that there were some backdoor activities which were playing with the results and this happened within milliseconds because they already had a template in place. Results were already prepared elsewhere and just loaded in the MEC database,” said Suleman.

The IT expert said it is impossible in human era to use and log in one computer machine that are geographically apart at the same time.

“It is practically impossible for a human being to type all data on tally sheet whitin 1 second,” he said.

He also disclosed that MEC officials had a deliberate ploy to weaken the system by using personalized e-mail addresses such as gmail.com and hotmail.com which is contrary to Public Sector ICT Standards of 2014.

These e-mail addresses, said Suleman, are only accepted to be used for official business only and if the employee shall permit government to access and approve the address, as per ICT standards requirements.

“MEC IT experts being public servants, failed to follow all that when they were using these addresses,” he said adding that there was a ghost user with a [email protected] address who had access to MEC system.”

On MEC chairperson Jane Ansah’s rush to announce results, he told the court that out of 5002 tally sheets, she announced results when the database only processed 3677polling centre votes  which was against thatthe results be announced after the system processing is at 100 percent.

“The system did not finalize processing the results and there was no need to announce them,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sulemani will give a final aspect of  demonstration on Monday monring  and he is expected to be cross-examined from afternoon.

UTM Party president Saulos Chilima (first respondent) and MCP presidential hopeful Lazarus  Chakwera (second respondent) w are seeking nullification of the presidential election results over alleged irregularities..