Malawi election observers urge transparent election results management

LILONGWE, Malawi

International and regional observers of Malawi's general elections urged transparency Thursday in the management of election results as pressure from opposition parties and civil society organizations begins to mount.

Seven million eligible Malawians went to the polls Tuesday to elect a new president, members of parliament and councilors to govern the country for the next five years.

But the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has not yet released official partial results to the displeasure of election key stakeholders who are exerting pressure on the electoral body to have the results made public.

Lucia Annuziata, chief observer of the European Union Observation Mission, has urged transparency in the results management to “avoid suspicions towards the whole process.”

“The voting process has been conducted in a peaceful and orderly manner. It’s therefore important to ensure that the result management process should be done in an open and transparent manner to stop people from making wrong conclusions,” Annunziata said at a news conference.

Themba Nhlanganiso, head of the SADC Election Observation Mission (SEOM), said transparent management of the results would bring confidence to all election stakeholders.

SEOM, a grouping of nine Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states, encouraged “all stakeholders to continue promoting the positives of peace, tolerance and calm across all available platforms while the country awaits results of the elections.”

A statement from the Citizens and Defenders of Malawi Democracy called for “full transparency from MEC, including a detailed explanation of delays of results and protection of all election-related data and materials to prevent tampering, loss or destruction.”

“We remind MEC and all involved stakeholders that the people of Malawi entrusted them with the sacred duty to protect the democratic process. Any attempts therefore to subvert the will of the people will not go undetected,” it said in a statement.

Senior officials of the main opposition, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), have said delays and lack of transparency of results “would flare people’s tempers and erode trust of the electoral body.”

Ben Phiri, the party’s elections director, said that “people were anxious to know the true outcome of the votes they cast; therefore there is need for openness and transparency in management of the results.”

Seventeen presidential hopefuls, including incumbent Lazarus Chakwera, who is the leader of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), are contesting in what many describe as the “most consequential poll” since the country returned to multiparty politics in 1993, amid growing disillusionment about economic stagnation and corruption scandals.​​​​​​​

The elections are a showdown between Chakwera and former President Arthur Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Unofficial results from private media houses indicate that Mutharika is in the lead.

Presidential results are officially announced within seven days after polling, according to the Constitution.