Removing Chichewa, lack of evidence, Chilima on tight rope: Day 2 Malawi presidential elections case
Dr. Saulosi Klaus Chilima political capital has been built on open, transparent and direct participation of all Malawians with proclamation that “tsogolo lowala, lafika”. However, second the day of the historic court case to nullify presidential results in the May 21 Tripartite Elections, Chilima shocked every Malawian as his legal team wanted Chichewa translation out of the trial.
Hold on, why would Chilima and his legal team (They wouldn’t apply to court without his blessings) want the majority of Malawians not to follow the case simply because the Chichewa will delay the case- the truth as the eloquent SKC did not bring the requisite evidence to court.
The application against Chichewa will remain the main debate for the day, and political interpretation could cost his capital of openness. Chilima needs to tread carefully, he cannot choreograph the court case, he has no control and legally after his admissions to all of the Attorney General (AG) claims, his team as a tall order to portray the election as fraudulent or irregular. The election is conducted at the polling centre, where it seems none of the UTM monitors encountered the challenges Chilima alleges hindered the whole election.
As the main petitioner, he sets the tone of the case. Bring evidence, centre ABC had results manipulated, irregular process and indeed tippexed results. He owes that to Malawians when he charged, he has “overwhelming evidence” and that he wanted his day in court.
His petition moved the court that the elections were not run in line with laws and regulations. Interestingly going through the Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale’s line of questions and Chilima answers, day two of the trial one can confirm that the UTM has no case in terms of electoral process, the infamous tippex and use of wrong sheets.
In Chilima’s own answer on the second day, tippex did not alter the results, he also agreed what mattered are the figures being acceptable to all monitors and more critically, he said he did not have problems with the whole election, but some other things.
He has wantonly failed to set the tone. I was praying for a stronger come back on Friday, but it was his lawyer Marshal Chilenga who was becoming desperate, objecting to many things, asking Kaphale to hurry up or not ask any questions again. The desperation shows Chilima on the stand is damaging their case, his petition which he read though was full of conjecture and not reality.
Elections again start from the polling. Did people vote accordingly? Was the voted counted objectively? Were the results agreed by all the parties or not? If there were problems, have any of the parties challenged the results or not? If they have the evidence, wrong tally sheets or altered results have these been presented as evidence?
If these basics are not clear in Chilima’s petition, his answers and if his petition remains a mound of allegations without substantive evidence, name of a single centre where results were tampered with or changed against him. The case means has no basis.
If the case has no basis as Chilima keeps now referring to “other affidavits” now his counsel Khumbo Soko says are 40, hopefully from monitors or people from the polling centres, if is very difficult to understand why he allowed Malawi to burn when he knew he had nothing.
As someone wrote somewhere, they should have waited for the court case to call for Jane Ansah’s head, I am sure the Human Rights Defenders Coalition, which ironically has suspended the demonstrations because of the case they all along claimed were not related, would issue an apology to Malawians for lying to them.
I hope SKC will manage to overturn the first two days by bring centres where rigging, intimidation and alteration took place. He agreed to Kaphale’s assertions through and through, that monitors would know better, I cannot figure out why they would miss such basic information which is the foundation of the whole elections, especially with the brilliant legal team they have.
Of course, the court was right, let Chichewa broken or not be continued. Let Malawians who have been told their will was not respected be shown the evidence, let the truth flow like river Jordan.
Second day again went to the Attorney General again. I am now wondering why they even included President Peter Mutharika in their petition. I would ordinarily withdraw him if that petition was based on what has been presented. Mutharika’s lawyer’s would be very brutal, it could finish Chilima’s career.
Justice anakonza!
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MCP TIYENI TIZUKE KU TULO CHILIMA AKHOZA KUTIMBWITITSA MULANDU AMAONEKA NGATI OCHENJERA KOMA NDI ZII
The voters in rural Malawi don’t speak english. You want only those who didn’t vote, but doing demos to understand the court proceedings?
After all is said and done I think evidence from the Results Management System (RMS) – the software package that was used to collate and tally results from all centers in ‘real time’ by the MEC will also provide some clarity as to what may have happened.
Looking at the affidavit and sworn statement from the IT expert for the MCP (whom I happen to know in a personal and business capacity when we worked together briefly in October last year in Blantyre), I think the MEC shot itself in the foot. Tippex aside, the results of the forensic audit paint a totally different picture.
In my humble opinion, if the MEC trusted the (software) system as robust and reliable, they must also accept what the system logs are showing. This is pure (computer) science, not conjecture. They must explain how the entries processed within milli-seconds of each other found their way into the database – mind you, in a thin web client (as in this case) or any other system connected to a database on different machine, there is usually a delay due to latency and other factors. I doubt if our internet speeds are that great.
Just by virtue of the logs and audit trail in the (back-end) Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) called Microsoft SQL Server that the software package (front-end) the MEC used is attached to, a nullification of the election would be the right thing to do. The results were definitely manipulated by running scripts (commands straight into the database as opposed to the online / web portal that was supposed to be used by the data capturers and/or auditors).
The audit trail and logs one cannot make up, unless lawyers for DPP (or government) can prove someone (from the plaintiffs’ side) illegally hacked into the system and inserted those entries. Well we know somebody did but for totally different reasons. Isn’t that fraud? And it seems whoever was hired to create these entries (whether for the MEC or other) forgot the one cardinal rule when you cheat – don’t leave a trail and don’t get caught.
FYI – I am a software engineer (since 2003) based in Johannesburg, South Africa. I use all the the Microsoft technologies (.NET, SQL Server, ASP.NET Core etc etc) mentioned in the affidavit compiled by the learned MCP IT expert.
chilima is brilliant amayankha mwanzeru
Ngati Chilima sadzapepesa kwa Peter ngati mwana olowerera,Sadzapeza mte ndere moyo wake onse.Peter anali ngati bambo wache.Ndipo kholo ngakhale likhale lochepa mwendo siungalionetsere chipongwe chimene wachita Chilima.Ndipo waphunzitsa Ana mwano,chipongwe,kunyoza,kuderera,kunyansidwa ndi achikulire.Moti waononga ponse ponse .Pano abusa,mabwana,atsogoleri amabungwe osiyana Ali m’mbvuto kunyozedwa ,osalabadilidwa ndi achinyamata.Chilima alape ndi kupepesa ngati amapempheradi.Apo bii Mulungu dadzamukhululukira.Waononga achinyamata
I didn’t know kuti Kaphale is this brutal. Eish kkkk he made Chilima look like a small boy
Yes, he is so merciless when it comes to cross examining in court and the process was intended to, at most, embarrass him which he did. Over the weekend the print media has even written articles on the cross examining. However, in Malawi cross examining is far behind to that in England where they also follow the English Legal System.
I don’t know why Chilima decided to make himself a laughing matter like this. He clearly knows, together with Chakwera, that they lost. How can you rush to court with sentiments only and no evidence. I congratulated him when he conceded defeat and thought he was mature but ha! I was very wrong. Now that the court have turned down your request to have chichewa translation scraped off, be assured that majority Malawians will continue hearing mbwelera
Some of the evidence can be found in the computer generated logs from the system the MEC used. Whether this is enough to sway the judges or not remains to be seen. But as a IT expert (like the guy who compiled the affidavit), the audit trail paints a different picture of the truth (or untruth). I am not sure whether the final result that was announced was from the system or other. If it was from the system (which by virtue of being used by the MEC meant it was trusted), then I don’t know what the outcome would be. Unless the MEC can prove otherwise about the origin of those records, I don’t see a learned judge who can rule otherwise. See my other comment somewhere on this page.
eya cicewa kuti ose anavota aziva ndikudziwa cikucitika.
mwawauza nkuwatayatu
What Kaphale is telling Malawians is that if you have a fake K2000 bank note that has features of a genuine note then that bank note is not fake. Is this the Attorney General Malawians can trust? Does he want to legalise usage of fake bank notes or fertiliser coupons simply because they have features of a genuine note or signature of the governor of the reserve bank.
Poor you douchebag…. what’s the coordination with your silly comment…? That was just an example kape iwe mxiew
Dull people fail to understand what is being said. Kaphale never used an example. It was substantive. I don’t have to waste my time arguing with someone whose brain weighs less than a flea and is faulty or full of faulty logic. Replay what Kaphale asked and listen with your ears not with your defective heart.
Irrelevant
This article is full of misleading statements made by very biased author. And it’s too early to start feeding people false conclusions. Calm down, mpunga udya.
kodi zikutelo????? ce kaphale mwamela citsukwa… nde nkhani muutinji??????
olo kushaina?
izitu ndi zoti olo wakumudzi oberedwa vote aziva nao . si okhao ova cizungu.
ndi za anthu ose a mudziko osati a ma file okha, etitu
Chilima impressed me in the way he answered Kaphale.For example Kaphale asked Chilima if any of the altered tippexed result sheets affected the presidential results.Here there were only two possible answers ie NO or YES.If the answer was YES,it would require evidence interms figures behind the tippex which is almost impossible to identify the figures hiden by the tippex.Kaphale was looking for YES for two reasons.First for evidence purpose and secondly to concentrate on tippex figures and not other irregularities..Most answers that Kaphale was looking for from Chilima was contrary to his desire.That why Kaphale kept on repeating the questions for several times in his cross examination.However,the right answer to that question would be ” l don’t know” though tecnically YES can be the best answer because it implies there were no other results apart from MEC’s which are being challenged in court of law and MEC still failing to bring its tallysheets to court up to now.So,as far as MEC results,tippex tally sheets did not affected their results.Now,to my fellow readers,do u think altered tippexed MEC tallysheets afftected MEC results?
Its has to be answered by factual figures not opinions…The court won’t require your opinion but hard facts.The legal team didn’t do a good job..
Mbutuma
My wife participated and also tippexed some figures. I asked her why she did that, she said mistakes were done out of fatigue. Tippex used was not supplied by MEC but was from the offices they were tallying. All monittors were called to witness the alterations. A chilima, A Trapence , A Mtambo, ndi A Chakwera shame on you. Mubweze zomwe mwaononga and mupepese kwa a Malawi.
The proper procedure was to cross out neatly the wrong figure and write the correct figure beside the incorrect figure. By applying correction fluid, it meant hiding the earlier figures which may have reflected the correct number of votes a candidate had amassed. But upon some assessment like in damages award in personal injury issues, figures were just created and apportioned to preferred candidates. As such figures, were hurriedly tippexed to reflect that.
And the monitors from all parties complied?
Kodi akulu inu, “figure behind tippex” which figures. Anthu mukamakamba ngati your parties had no monitors at the polling center. Kodi inu simunagwilitsepo ntchito tippex. if the figures were changed with tippex why did your monitors sign such sheets. Mwangopeza pobisalira basi. Accept that you lost
@DOBO
Armchair “lawyer”, again expressing opinion, rather than fact which are required in the (democratic republic’s) laws.
Essentially you are just parroting the old “ATIBERA” song; and out of tune too.
poor logic!
Tiziwe zoona zake za nkhani
Kapilikoni
I already saw this coming, the opposition has no tangible case. All what Chilima will accomplish in this case is to damage his reputation so badly that it won’t be easy for him to win the hearts and minds of many Malawians.
And challenging the use of Chichewa which is widely spoken and understood by many of us is another blandor which Chilima has made.
Make believe General Saulos Chilima’s childishness and immaturity is for all of us to see in Court and in BBC Hardtalk. This Chilima is a baby. Wasting Court’ s time and more like backstabbing Rev Dr Chakwera and the MCP. Is he bought out by DPP?
This man failed to speak coherently in Court and BBC Hard-talk. This man cannot lead the country- he is a failure. By the way where has all the wealth he has been spending come from? Chilima is corrupt.
He should in fact be in Court answering charges for rigging the 2014 elections with Bowler. These are the 2 who rigged the elections for DPP. They are the brains for rigging in 2014. Where is Brian? Why a blotched job at rigging in 2019.? Chilima kept telling Malawians that he would reveal how the 2014 elections were rigged but has never done. Why?
Chilima you are an incompetent person.
This is the man who promised to change Malawi. O have argued upteenth times that though educated, with academic accolades against his name, Arafat is dull, with no leadership qualities and an empty and angry tin. I am vindicated. Motooo buuuuuu…..wamapesi.
Chilima and Chakwera ought to have studied the MEC organization, laws governing it’s operations, and chain of custody of the electoral material. Unless there is an unkown strategy, his performance may appear suspect. Chilima knew all along that his stand alone approach to elections was itself questionable. No matter how hopeful things looked for UTM, a political novice would have guessed he Chilima would split the vote in favor of Peter Mutharika. If true, his lone run would be seen, either as deliberate attempt to re- elect Mutharika or just a plain lack of political acumen, replete with abject unawareness of the political landscape Chilima and Chakwera must sit down together to strategize. Otherwise, they risk being pitted against each other in court. Also both their lawyers, with all the fervor to get the case going, have to show preparedness on their part zs well as the petitioners. Suffice it to say, this was not a slam dunk for the respondent or AG. Revardless of anything that has transpirex so far, MEC chair has overall authority. She will take a stand on her decisions during the election. However, both petitioners must be aware based on the outcome of the case, their acceptability as leaders will be enhanced or dimished. Don’t count on the elections of 2024. Other players will jump in.
Point of correction Kishobeh. Chilima has not failed to answer questions, he has answered questions to the best of his knowledge. Every case begins like this, but things take anew direction when both sides begin challenging each other based on what has been presented before the court. So it is premature for the author of this article and indeed to celebrate. This demonstrates that he has not witnessed court case before and has no knowledge how legal proceedings are conducted. Chilima’s turn is coming, wait to see the fireworks. Kampale is not asking questions to seek facts, but rather to intimidate a witness. Unfortunately, his tactic will not work and he is actually giving strong weapons to Chakwera.
Lets look at the issue with a sober mind. Chilima goofed in his responses. He even acknowledged that the use of tipex did not affect figures for presidential results mmmm shame. He was answering like a child. I was thinking that he has substance but alas no substance at all. Lets wait for Monday when he will parade his witnesses.
He gave tactical responses to avoid being asked to bring evidence. The real cross examination will come on the other side.
Kkkkk you have to prove beyond reasonable doubt to convince the court that there was fraud. How do you do that without witnesses?
Is Kaphale defending Chilima or MEC. Kaphale is throughout his cross examination stating the obvious so why should Chilima dispute that and look a fool. Let’s wait for the time when dock will be occupied by the other side.
Here we are look now you have destroyed Malawians property in the name of mademo and your failing to answer questions shame on you. Mind you God is good all the time.