An overview of the 2014 Tripartite Elections

1. An Observer’s perspective: Before,
during and soon after May 2014
Tripartite Elections

2.  This presentation is one of the many that can
be produced to provide a general overview of
the tripartite elections processes .
 It is therefore limited in scope and is not
exhaustive. But it is setting the pace for the
subsequent presentations in this conference
 However, it emanates from observations made
on the hard core features of Malawian politics
and subsequent electoral processes.

3.  For the conference to understand the political
dynamics, it is critical to link the politics of
today with the socio-economic issues affecting
Malawi.
 Further, we can not talk of political
developments minus their passive and active
actors i.e. political parties and candidates,
CSOs, Faith, Traditional and Opinion leaders
not overlooking the general citizenry.

4.  Politicians have spun the wheels of misfortune for
this country since yester years whilst, Malawians as
citizens have passively or in other occasions-actively
but wrongly participating in the polity.
 Politicians have been revered, respected, adhored
sometimes to the detriment of Malawian citizens’
authentic engagement with their leaders.
 This has limited spaces of honest engagement,
responsiveness, vertical and horizontal
accountability not overlooking genuine
representation.

5.  No wonder therefore, Malawi has been reduced to a
“complaining nation” time after time, administration
after administration, generation after generation.
 No wonder, political leaders choose who it to lead
next after them making the people/ followers not to
have any choice.
 Evidently, party conventions as evidently seen in this
recent past, are often times rites of passages
rubberstamping a choice already made in some other
higher places.
 Primary elections are creating more “independent”
MPs and are increasingly becoming marred with
political violence showing lack of intra-party
democracy.

6.  Sadly, the quest of national identity, national
meaning and national sovereignty is diminishing.
 When four main political parties in Malawi seek
state powers, they create political plate tectonics
splitting mother Malawi into four voting blocks.
 Resultantly, creating a political context of mistrust,
political relativism, bigotry and national
disintegration .
 The failure of main political parties to strike electoral
alliances before May 20, was largely based on this
understanding above.

7.  The four main political parties- UDF, DPP,
MCP and PP, were overconfident to winning
the elections hence they could not strike any
electoral alliance.
 However, this was against some popular
expectations from some citizens, it was also
against some well researched findings.
 Overconfidence sometimes leads to
underestimation, under-planning and over-assumptions
that later lead to denial of results.

8.  The micro economic indicators were slumping. CCJP
and NDI research, among many others had shown
clearly that people are being hit hard with financial
woes, the power of the Kwacha left citizens helpless.
 With cash-gate and Jet-gate in the milieu, frustrations
and anger were getting heightened.
 The social service delivery system had collapsed like in
Health- with shortage of drugs and congestion in public
health facilities becoming dominant.
 Suspected thieves increasingly have been torched to
death just like over 15 police units have been torched
down by irate citizens who are largely becoming
impatient with inefficiencies from police.

9.  Some politicians and their cohorts were seemingly
getting richer than the rest consolidating the two-tier
Malawian society, with the poor getting angrier.
 The cash-gate scandal is a mirror of a get-rich-quick
syndrome that has gripped the psychic of Malawian
society taking away important values of hardworking,
social concern, solidarity, honesty an patriotism.
 Resultantly, a free for all looting became inevitable, the
winner takes it all approach became entrenched.
 Yet, government funding shrunk drastically and civil
servants salaries become a burden for government to
honor timely.

10.  The state efforts at improving peoples livelihoods
were seen by many as mere ploy to consolidate
dependency syndrome .e.g. One cow- one family,
parallel fertilizer subsidy project, Mudzi
transformation trust etc.
 A divided nation in evaluating and appreciating
these state efforts emerged; others believing the
state was trying its best whilst others saying the
state was largely clueless, had no vision. This
affected how CSOs, FBOs, Traditional leaders
reflected upon the contemporary Malawi.
 Malawi was emerging into an inherently self-contradicting,
inconsistent and un agreeing nation.

11.  Malawi went into preparations for tripartite elections.
 With shortage of personnel and equipment MEC had to
stagger the voter registration process in 10 phases.
 Complaints of faulty equipment and unmotivated personnel
were many in turn pressure for MEC to reopen some
preceding registration centers mounted.
 MEC claimed to have registered 7,543,000 voters in total.
 There was no consensus as to the possibility of this final
figure hence it remained contested till the polling day.
 7,543,000 was seen as covering half of the population which
could not be of voting age.
 The North had 1.1 million registered voters, the Centre had
3.1million registered voters and the south had 3.4 million
registered voters

12.  The voter verification exercise was lowly
patronized due to poor publicity by MEC on
the exercise though the figures later dropped
from 7, 537, 548 to 7,470, 806 million
 The voters’ roll was not yet popularized and
was largely non available in most of the polling
stations and in others, it came very late.

13.  Over 132 CSOs, FBOs and CBOs were accredited by
MEC to provide civic and voter education but less
than 20 had accessed funding due to strange and
unprecedented arrangements from cooperating
partners.
 Those that has funding had tough disbursement
processes rendering their interventions slow and
irrelevant to the electoral calendar.
 The CVE interventions this elections, therefore have
been largely cosmetic and poor whilst few FBOs like
PAC, CCJP and NICE have at least tried

14.  Continued dominance of a party in government on public
media.
 Strangely these elections , according to MACRA reports, PP
had dominance even on private media houses.
 Stories of voter ID cards getting sold and bought increased.
 Stories of rigging- at that time by PP got hyped though with
no tangible evidence, but became a source of worry,
mistrust.
 MEC proactively engaged government on opening up MBC
with some positive results towards the end.
 The social media is emerging to be an elite platform but
highly vulgar, abusive, divisive and in part, immoral.

15.  Abuse of state resources was rampant- political
rallies dubbed developmental rallies.
 Increased ditching out of hand outs was noted.
 Political violence in Karonga central, Goliati in
Thyolo and in Mangochi and Blantyre was noted.
 Commitment to peace by political leaders through
PAC was a positive intervention.
 Denouncing of violence by political players, faith
leaders and CSO leaders was having a direct impact.
 Sadly though some chiefs and faith leaders abused
their authority in endorsing certain presidential
candidates.

16.  For the first time, civic education and campaign
was dubbed “issue-based” with debates at
presidential, parliamentary and ward levels.
 The talk for transformative leadership and Malawi
rediscovering its destiny after 50 years of
independence and 20 years of democracy become
heightened.
 Regardless of shortfalls here and there, this is a
marked departure from usual tribal, regionalistic
and personal political tactics. It must be
encouraged- its fruits are far enriching than
divisive politics.

17.  Fully nominated MPs for political parties
Northern Region
 DPP 31 out of 33
 MCP 28 out of 33
 UDF 27 out of 33
 PP 33 out of 33
 NARC-7, NASAF-4, PDM-1, PPM-6, AFORD-
9,PETRA-3, UIP-3, INDEPENDENTS-52

18. CENTRAL REGION- 73
 DPP- 70 out of 73
 MCP- 72 out of 73
 UDF- 69 out of 73
 AfORD-3 out of 73
 PP- 73 out of 73
 NASAF-8 out of 73, PPM-15, UIP-6, NCP-4,
UIP-5, PETRA-1
 INDEPENDENTS- 137

19. SOUTHERN REGION- 87 TOTAL
 DPP-86
 MCP-56
 UDF- 85
 PP- 86
 PPM-26
 NASAF-11, MAFUNDE-4, UIP-8, CCP-3,
PETRA-2, NLP-3
 INDEPENDENTS- 232

20. OUT OF 193 PARLIAMENTARY SEATS
 DPP- 187 LESS BY 6
 MCP-159 LESS BY 34
 UDF-181 LESS BY 12
 PP-192 LESS BY 1
 INDEPENDENTS- 421
 PRESIDENTS- 12

21.  AFORD-1
 CCP-1
 DPP-50
 MCP-48
 PP-26
 UDF-14
 INDEPENDENTS-52
 FEMALES-30
 MALES-162

22.  TOTAL POLLING STATIONS- 4,445
 99% Polled on 20th May
 46 polling stations representing 1% of the total
polled on 21st and 22nd May. Due to logistical
challenges I.E. shortage of ballot papers and
transport.
 5, 288,258 voted representing 70.78%
 56,675 votes representing 1.07% were declared null
and void
 76,692 votes from 65 cases from 58 polling stations
were quarantined for irregularities. These became a
source of MEC division, national tension and
heightened polarization.

23.  Prof Peter Mutharika- 1,904,399- 36.4%
 Dr. Lazurus Chakwera- 1,455,880- 27.8%
 Dr. Joyce Banda- 1,056236- 20.2%
 Atulepe Muluzi-717224-13.7%
 Chibambo,Mark Katsonga, Prof John Chisi,
Nnesa, Nyondo, Hellen Singh, Jumbe, Davies
Katsonga. Shared the remaining percentage in
the descending order.
 NOTE: 2,182,548 did not vote though they
registered.

24.  Parallel Tally centres by CSOs like MESN,
CCJP and NICE- with projects similar to MEC
results
 Political party tally centres with results not
made public but still used to dispute MEC
results.
 MESN using 800 polling stations sample had :
DPP-32.7-39.3; UDF-11.9-15.5; MCP-25.1-
31.7;PP-18.2-21.8 Results ranges

25.  MEC was overstretched personnel and resource
wise hence huge logistical challenges, first time
holding tripartite elections hence no one imagined
the mammoth task.
 MEC secretariat staff were in need of quality control
or assurance mechanisms.
 MEC was mistrusted from the beginning of the
electoral calendar.
 MEC’s commissioners had serous partisan positions
mirroring the general mood of the Malawian society
before, during and after the polls.

26.  Rigging allegations had created a bad mood for the
electoral processes, some with outrageous rigging
stories.
 NECOF meetings though important were
sometimes trivialized by political parties.
 Political parties monitors were less competent to
deal with polling issues due to poor remuneration.
 Only CCJP, NICE, PAC and MESN had deployed
domestic observers
 International observers were almost everywhere in
polling stations.

27.  The elections were not rigged by any political
party as evidence from CSOs attests.
 Irregularities were there but there were
explainable and correctable though at the same
time insignificant to change the outcome of
results.
 Rigging perceptions coupled with irregularities
worsened with delayed and extended polling
were a recipe for non acceptability of poll
results.

28.  The nation has come out bruised and
fragmented.
 Of course with 12 presidential candidates-minority
votes were for sure to take a winner to
the state powers.
 The challenges of elections notwithstanding,
the reforms we need are more than legal. They
are political and cultural including religious.

29.  The “winner takes it all” wont be a way forward.
 Building bridges of peace and integration is critical for all
political players ruling and opposition.
 Taking the battle of politics from MEC to Parliament will
be a worst scenerio like of 2004 to 2009 parliament. We
need to learn from this recent history.
 The “complaining alliance” of MCP, UDF and PP could
be a sad development of politics of retribution yet we all
call for transformative leadership not only in government
but also in opposition parties.
 All stakeholders must work for peace and national
building and politicians must not be trusted as only
engineers of this.

30.  There was equal paralysis of analysis from CSOs, FBOs,
political party leaders and some politicians sought to benefit
from the confusion.
 The judiciary has always come in to give sanity to
passionately held “political truths”.
 Evidence from various research findings like CCJP/NDI-
2014, AFROBAROMETER- 2014 were ignored or hidden to
the disadvantage of the electoral process.
 Political parties ignore demographic figures as they plan
and work on so much public perceptions anchored by weak
political scientists analysis that are oftentimes detached
from the ground realities. Registered figures attest.
 Continued claims of rigging from 1999 hinders other
political parties from genuinely learning what stops them
from attaining maximum votes.