Synod prays for Ansah ouster: ‘She is architect of current woes in Malawi’

Livingstonia Synod of the Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP) claims Jane Ansah, the chairperson of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) is the architect of the current woes in Malawi and it is praying that she must resign so that the country is healed.

The Synod moderator Douglas Chipofya and general secretary Levi Nyondo said on Saturday at Uliwa in Karonga that they support the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) demonstrations calling for embattled MEC chair to resign.

HRDC has been leading nationwide demonstrations to demand the resignation of Ansah from the electoral body whom it accuses of presiding over a flawed May 21 presidential elections whose results were marred by use of correction fluid to alter figures on results sheets.

Nyondo said the church will not sit and watch people protest the electoral fraud, arguing doing so would mean promoting injustice, saying it is praying for Ansah to go.

“As a church, we are praying that she (Ansah) should resign quickly, and we will not stop because she is the cause if everything, she is the denominator of everything. So, we are still praying,” said Nyondo.

He was speaking when an arm of the Synod – Church and Society – presented bicycles to community-based educators for use in its Children, Youth and Community for Change project.

Nyondo said most youth are now in the streets with HRDC protesting because they are facing various socio-economic challenges and that the ‘tipexed’ election results have simply aggravated that anger.

He said even though Ansah is clinging in her MEC position, she will eventually resign, saying the power of prayer cannot be underestimated.

“Rome was not built in one day,” he said.

In his remarks, Synod’s spiritual father Chipofya said: “We are in a situation whereby people are crying over the May 21 elections. Demonstrations are a right but what is bad is destroying property during the demonstrations, we do not condone that and we condemn that in strongest terms.”

But the embattled MEC chairperson, who has described the accusations of mismanaging the polls as unfounded and baseless, has rejected resignation calls, saying she would wait for the court’s judgement before deciding whether to step aside or not.

The Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal judge further described the ongoing nationwide demonstrations by HRDC as “mob justice”.

Results MEC announced put MCP presidential candidate Lazarus Chakwera on second position with 1 781 740 votes, representing 35.41 percent while his UTM Party counterpart Saulos Chilima came a distant third with 1 018 369 votes, representing 20.24 percent, ahead of four other aspirants.

Chilima and Chakwera have since filed a petition in the Constitutional Court seeking nullification of the presidential election results. They cite alleged flaws in the results management process as a key factor for their case.