Malawi: Countdown to Elections

* Related Link:
Elections Institute of Southern Africa briefing
http://eisa.org.za/PDF/EUMALAWI200401.pdf

MALAWI'S “BOGUS” VOTER STATISTICS
Dr. Wiseman Chijere Chirwa
Chancellor College, University of Malawi

There has recently been a feud between the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and the National Statistical Office (NSO) over the correct figure for the registered voters in Malawi. During the second week of April 2004, the MEC announced that 6.5 million voters registered for the 18 May 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections. The NSO described the figure as “bogus” because it does not conform to the country's natural demographic trends. “It defies all logic”, observed the Weekend Nation, one of the country's leading weekly papers. A mathematician and statistician at the Polytechnic, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Malawi, who is also Director of Publicity for the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) described the figure as “absurd and a pointer to [election] rigging”. Last year, with assistance from the US Bureau of Census, USAID, and the UNFP, the NSO projected the country's population above 18 years of age at 5.5 million in 2004.

This would constitute the population qualified to register as voters, as the legal voting age in Malawi is 18 years and above. The current population comprises about 12 million people. “Our projections [based on the last (1998/99) national population census] are [that] the population has grown at an average rate of 3.2 per cent”, observed the NSO. [Sic:] “But if you calculate the average rates at which the Commission's figures are based on, you will find that they are way above the normal population growth rate”, the NSO argued. The MEC registered some 5,071, 822 voters for the 1999 general elections. The figure for the 2004 elections suggests an increase of 1 million, despite the fact that some 106,086 registered voters have died in the last five years and have since been removed from the voters' register. To some analysts, including the NSO, these figures do not make much sense, especially if they are broken down into regional distributions. Malawi has three administrative regions: north, centre and south. Slightly more than 50 per cent of the country's population lives in the southern region, and just about 12 per cent in the northern region; and about 38 per cent in the central region.

According to the NSO, “why should the northern region, all of a sudden, have over 200,000 [voters] more registered in just five years? In the south, can they [MEC] explain how three million people registered when our projected adult population by June this year is only 2.6 million?” The number of registered voters in the northern region was 678,906 in 1999. It has risen to 924,879 in 2004, representing a 36 per cent increase. In the central region, 1,975,203 voters registered in 1999; 2,703,621 registered in 2004 - another 36 per cent increase. In the southern region, 3,040,339 voters registered in 2004, compared to 2,417,713 in 1999 - an increase of 25 per cent.

To many people, the argument is that although an increase was indeed expected, given the natural increase in the country's population, the registration increase is just too high and warrants an explanation. According to the Weekend Nation (17-18 April, 2004), “either [the adult] population is unknown or 6.5 million voters are from Mars! Even if the Commission assumes a 100 per cent registration rate - which is not possible even where people get punished for not registering - the 6.5 million figure cannot be accurate. There simply are not that many adults of 18 and above in our country.”

The statistics feud has increased fears of election rigging. The opposition parties are of the view that “it shows how the ruling party has orchestrated rigging by inflating figures [and] creating polling centres just to increase the number of voters”. A critical analyst would argue that if it is at all true that the governing UDF (United Democratic Front) and the MEC are orchestrating rigging, then the current formula may be risky. It has the potential to work against them. The increases in the numbers of the registered voters are larger (by 36 per cent) in the northern and central regions. The two regions are generally regarded as opposition strongholds. The 25 per cent increase in the southern region may also easily work in the favour of the opposition parties, given that the governing party's candidate and two of the leading contenders in the presidential race are all from the same region. There will be splitting of votes, and the UDF has no guarantee of success in the region. They can no longer bank on the regional-cum-ethno-linguistic bloc vote.

The MEC-NSO feud is interesting in many other respects. In 1999, the NSO was criticised by academics and civil society organisations for “inflating” the adult population of the southern region. It was interpreted as a move to facilitate the UDF winning of the elections that year, given that the southern region is viewed as the UDF's stronghold. This time it is the NSO versus the MEC, raising similar concerns. One would argue that at the centre of all these controversies is the integrity of the demographic databases in the country. Whose demographic statistics does one believe: those of the NSO or those of the MEC? Something sounds awfully wrong with Malawi's demographic statistics and databases. Also questionable is the integrity of the MEC as an election management body. Rocked by various accusations and controversies, its professional management of the overall electoral process has become rather suspect and may be challenged after the polls on 18 May 2004.

SOURCE:

ELECTION TALK
A fortnightly policy brief from the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa
No. 12, 22 April 2004

MALAWI: COURTS AND THE 2004 ELECTIONS
Dr. Edge Kanyongolo
University of Malawi

Since the adoption of the current Constitution in 1994, the courts in Malawi have played a very significant role in political processes. One area in which the courts have been remarkably active has been that of elections. In both the elections of 1994 and 1999, courts adjudicated in a wide range of disputes. There is nothing to indicate that the courts will be less active in the 2004 electoral process. On the contrary, the courts are likely to handle more cases mainly because of the increase in the number of parties and alliances actively contesting in the elections. Cases brought before the courts so far, also indicate a qualitative change in the role of the courts brought about by the emerging involvement of the courts in adjudicating intra-party aspects of the elections. These developments not only raise new professional challenges for the judiciary, but also highlight important questions of democratic principle for the electorate in Malawi.

Malawian courts have hitherto been involved in cases that have mainly involved electoral disputes between members of different political parties. In the 2004 elections, however, judicial intervention has been extended to intra-party disputes mainly arising out of the process for selecting parliamentary candidates undertaken in February by a number of political parties. In this regard, the current ruling party, the United Democratic Front (U.D.F.), has found itself being sued by its own prospective candidates complaining about the fairness of the selection process in nearly 10% of the country's electoral constituencies. In most of the cases, the High Court granted injunctions prohibiting the party from relying on the results of disputed selection exercises to determine its parliamentary candidates in the affected constituencies. At least one major opposition party, the Malawi Congress Party (M.C.P.) has also experienced judicial intervention in their process of candidate selection, with the High Court granting an injunction against the party prohibiting it from recognising the outcome of a voting exercise allegedly marred by fraud. In the last week of February alone, the High Court in Blantyre decided on at least ten cases brought by people who had lost in “primary elections”; cases that had allegedly been characterised by violence, intimidation and administrative irregularities.

Intra-party disputes have not been the only new type of election case. A three-judge panel of High Court dismissed an argument brought by the People's Progressive Movement over an interpretation of the term “judge” in connection with the Head of the Electoral Commission, as required by the Constitution. This was declared fanciful and divorced from the common understanding of the term “judge”.

De Ja Vu
In addition to the new areas in which the courts have been involved, some old familiar issues have also re-surfaced. As they have done in every election, the courts have been called upon to review decisions of the police banning public meetings of opposition parties and biased coverage of the campaign by the state-controlled electronic media. With regard to police powers, the High Court in Blantyre issued an injunction nullifying a police order prohibiting the Mgwirizano coalition of opposition parties from holding a public rally in the city of Blantyre on 22 February 2004. Similar orders have been issued in 1993, 1994 and 1999, but the police have continued to assume that they have the power to arbitrarily decide when a public meeting may not be held.

Another familiar type of case that is about to re-surface is that involving bias of the state-controlled electronic media. During the last elections in 1999, two individuals successfully sued the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (M.B.C.) for its biased coverage of the elections in favour of the incumbent party and President. The High Court unequivocally stated that M.B.C. was under a duty to give equal coverage to the opposition and the ruling party. In the run up to the 2004 elections, it is clear that the M.B.C. has chosen to ignore what the court ordered in 1999. The M.B.C. has not provided the balanced coverage that it is legally bound to provide under both the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections Act and the Communications Act. There are now indications that the Public Affairs Committee (P.A.C.), a human rights and governance non-governmental organisation, and the Malawi Human Rights Commission are preparing to sue the M.B.C for its bias relating to the 2004 elections.

Conclusion
The litigation over primaries has exposed the limits of democracy in the parties involved. The cases have shown limitations in the parties' electoral rules of procedure and absence of effective internal dispute resolution mechanisms. For their part, the cases on the police and the media indicate limitations in the latent authority of the courts; the police and the state-controlled media do not appear to be guided in their behaviour by previous decisions of the courts. All in all, judicial activism in the 2004 elections is likely to be instructive about the limits of democracy in the country.

SOURCE:

ELECTION TALK
A fortnightly policy brief from the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa
No. 10, 1 March 2004

MALAWI: OPPOSITION IN DISARRAY
Professor Wiseman Chijere Chirwa
Chancellor College, University of Malawi

Malawi's opposition politicians do not seem to have learnt any lessons from their neighbours in Zambia, Tanzania or Kenya. In both Zambia and Tanzania, the divided opposition parties twice failed to dislodge the governing parties in general elections. The opposition parties in Kenya suffered two defeats before realising the importance of forming a coalition and fielding a common presidential candidate. These events seem not to have provided the Malawi opposition parties with any meaningful lessons.

Towards the end of last year, five opposition parties that are outside Parliament announced that they would be forming a coalition that would field one presidential candidate for the 18 May 2004 presidential elections. The parties were: the Malawi Democratic Party (MDP), MAFUNDE, the National Unity Party (NUP), the People's Progressive Movement (PPM), and the People's Transformation Party (PETRA). They were earlier this year joined by the Movement for Genuine Democracy (MGODE), a breakaway group of the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD); and the Republican Party, a breakaway of the old Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda's Malawi Congress Party (MCP). AFORD and the MCP are currently the two opposition parties in Parliament, with AFORD in a coalition arrangement with the governing United Democratic Front (UDF). The MCP and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), another opposition party outside Parliament, shunned the opposition coalition, each of them stating their reasons for doing so. The MCP thought that they were the largest opposition party and therefore should have been endorsed as the leaders of the coalition. They were opposed to having equal voting powers with the other parties. On their part, the NDA felt that the electorate on the ground should be involved in the choosing of the common presidential candidate. Choosing the candidate among themselves without the involvement of the electorate would amount to the “boardroom selection” of the candidate. They were also not sure if the coalition would not amount to a merger of the parties because they were required to use a common symbol and common slogan which, it was feared, would compromise the individual identities of the parties. MGODE and PPM shared some of the MCP and NDA concerns but went ahead to sign the coalition memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the hope that some of the issues would be later resolved. They were terribly mistaken! Their colleagues in the other parties had ganged up and rallied around the RP president Gwanda Chakuamba, once Dr Kamuzu Banda's Vice President in the MCP. In 1999 Gwanda Chakuamba teamed up with AFORD's Chakufwa Chihana in an alliance. They lost to Bakili Muluzi of the UDF.

On 9 February 2004, the PPM protested against the behaviour of the other coalition members and threatened to pull out of the coalition if it did not include the MCP and the NDA, and if it did not adequately address the concerns expressed by these parties and those expressed by the PPM, themselves. The other parties made a few concessions but did not change their position on equal voting rights to all of them and the selection of a common presidential candidate in the “boardroom”.

On 13 February 2004, with the differences unresolved, the coalition parties went ahead to choose the RP's Gwanda Chakuamba and the PPM's Aleke Banda as the presidential candidate and running mate, respectively. Both Gwanda Chakuamba and Aleke Banda were cabinet ministers in Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda's government. They served in the Kamuzu regime from the late 1950s to the 1970s. They were in fact the longest serving members in Kamuzu's government. The combination of the two is seen in some quarters as a recycling of the old MCP.

The re-emergence and unification of the two old guards has split the new opposition parties into factions and blocs. Both PPM and MGODE are split between those that support the Chakuamba-Banda ticket and those that are opposed to it. At the inter-party level, blocs and camps have emerged. The MCP prefers to be alone and to be treated as the godfather of Malawian politics. The other parties should bow to them. A faction of PPM, a faction of MGODE and the NDA are talking to each other to form an alternative alliance; while all the other smaller parties have ganged up and rallied round RP and Gwanda Chakuamba. The PPM, MGODE and NDA bloc favour Justin Malewezi, the former Vice State President in the Muluzi government. Malewezi joined the PPM earlier in the year after having been denied the chance to succeed Muluzi, and later publicly humiliated by Muluzi and his lieutenants as a “dull”, “unintelligent”, “ineffective” and “inefficient” politician. PPM, MGODE and NDA followers and supporters are of the view that a ticket comprising PPM's Malewezi and NDA's Brown Mpinganjira would win the presidential race. Many other Malawians share this view. Mpinganjira served in various ministerial positions in the UDF-led government and is believed to be the founder of the UDF, which is currently the governing party. He fell out of favour with Muluzi when he opposed a constitutional change that would allow for a third term for the incumbent president. His bold step to oppose Muluzi from within has earned him the reputation of being a courageous and principled politician. Furthermore, it is believed that both Malewezi and Mpinganjira represent a younger generation of Malawian politicians and would therefore provide a good transition from the old to the new Malawi.

SOURCE:

ELECTION TALK
A fortnightly policy brief from the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa
No. 09, 16 February 2004