Malawi’s chaotic election

Malawi’s tumultuous elections, held last week, left the country reeling and at risk of violence. While peaceful campaigns marked the lead-up to the vote, havoc reigned on election day, when numerous polling centers didn’t open and many had no ballot boxes. Voters rioted, and Malawi’s president alleged electoral fraud. Malawi was plunged into a political crisis that threatened to undermine its two-decade-old democracy.

While in Malawi’s second largest city, Blantyre, for the elections, I expected to find a positive African story. It was Malawi’s fifth democratic elections since the end of one-party rule and, on the eve of the vote, the Malawi Electoral Commission declared it was ready to run an efficient and transparent election.

Instead, I found chaos. In many polling centres in Blantyre, voting started late. Many centres did not open at all. I visited a polling centre that had not opened by 4 pm and spoke to frustrated people who had queued as early as 4 in the morning. An official informed me that voting papers, indelible ink, and ballot boxes had not yet arrived – something that happened in many other centres across the country.

In protest, hundreds of voters rioted in Blantyre’s streets, burning down a polling station. The electoral commission extended voting by three hours and in some centres voting spilled into the next day.

During vote counting in Blantyre, the electronic system used to transmit votes crashed, and the commission resorted to manual counting.

The commission’s preliminary results for the presidential race, based on 30 percent of votes counted, placed opposition leader Peter Mutharika ahead with 42 percent of the vote, while current President Joyce Banda trailed with 23 percent. On Saturday, Banda alleged fraud and serious irregularities and declared the electoral process nullified. She ordered fresh elections to be held within 90 days. The electoral commission argued that the president had no authority to nullify elections and applied to the High Court, which ruled in favour of the commission and barred Banda from interfering with the electoral processes. The following day, the commission announced a country-wide recount of the vote after it found serious voting anomalies in some regions. Official results now show Mr Mutharika garnered 36.4 per cent of the vote, with Joyce Banda coming in third with 20.2 per cent behind runner-up Lazarus Chakwera’s 27.8 per cent haul. Following her concession speech in which she congratulated Peter Mutharika on his win, Ms Banda now becomes only the third Southern African incumbent president to concede defeat in an election.

The tense and precarious situation in the country raised a serious risk of post-election violence, but the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) declared the elections free, peaceful, and credible. They should now insist that Malawi’s political parties continue to follow the rule of law and respect the will of the Malawian people. The AU and SADC should naturally take necessary steps to keep Malawi on a democratic path.

Commendably, Malawi’s security forces have remained politically neutral. The country’s political leaders should continue to publicly call for calm and ensure the country does not slide into post-election violence. They should respect the electoral commission’s independence and uphold its ruling.

* Dewa Mavhinga is Senior Researcher for Zimbabwe and Southern Africa with the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch.

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