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| Columns |
| Backbencher |
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by
Anonymous, 30 January 2004
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13:37:34
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Prayer breakfast not enough for EC
Honourable Folks, it’s just as well that Apostle Dr. Madalitso Mbewe has decided to invite the most powerful in our partisan politics to a Presidential Prayer Breakfast at the New State House in Lilongwe on Tuesday. This animosity, the raw hatred that we are witnessing as we head towards May 18 requires much more than the Constitution and the electoral law to end peacefully.
God’s intervention is what can protect our children from the filth that comes out of the mouths of some of our political leaders who should have been leading by example.
But I doubt that folks at the Electoral Commission who, I understand, have also been invited to the prayers, will get much help from prayers that go with a K7 million ($66,037) sumptuous breakfast. The sheer enormity of the electoral mess they must clear requires prayer and fasting. Otherwise, this year’s general elections will be a fiasco.
Already, there is outcry that despite extending the registration period twice, many centres lacked materials for the greater part of the registration period. My own registration centre is in the City of Blantyre, about three kilometres from the Electoral Commission offices, but I had to go there twice before I could register. Why? There was no film on the first day I went there—which was a day before the deadline of the first extension. Now, if this could happen right in the city, what was the scenario in Chitipa, Nsanje and Phalombe?
Then there are the disturbing reports of irregularities. The opening of a registration centre at the Police Headquarters in Lilongwe was described as illegal by the Chief Elections Officer and legal by Electoral Commission spokesperson. Sheer madness emanating from an institution mandated to ensure free and fair elections!
Then the allegations that UDF functionaries were collecting names of registered voters and their registration numbers. I first heard about this from an opposition member who monitored the registration exercise in Dwangwa, Nkhotakota. I’m told he faxed to a newspaper the alleged list of names and their registration numbers as collected by the overzealous UDF official.
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, Lilongwe Diocese who reportedly deployed 1,500 monitors in Kasungu, Mchinji, Lilongwe, Salima, Dowa, Nkhotakota and Ntchisi confirmed the malpractice in Dwangwa in a press release. They openly said at Nyavuu Registration Centre, UDF area chairman Kalota sent two people door to door, collecting names and registration numbers within Dwangwa Sugar Factory compound. Again two registration numbers—04584705(94) and 04584706(94)—appear in the statement as an example of what UDF was recording.
In Lilongwe and Kasungu similar incidents were also reported. Now, we all know that voters will choose their President and MPs on May 18 and not before. We also know that registration certificates are not coupons for starter pack but used for voting. Why then should UDF record registration numbers?
The Electoral Commission should’ve taken keen interest in these developments, either stopping UDF from indulging in what appears to be daylight rigging or explaining to the electorate why all this is no cause for concern. Instead, the Electoral Commission is simply looking the other way, behaving as if everything is normal.
Not that this is surprising. Isn’t it the same Commission which just sat and watched as President Bakili Muluzi used the radio and TV not only to campaign for UDF but also to castigate and defame opposition leaders namely John Tembo, Brown Mpinganjira, Aleke Banda and Justin Malewezi? In the case of Malewezi, Muluzi went as far as making public confidential medical information which he may have obtained by virtue of his position as Head of State and Malewezi’s immediate superior.
Yet, not only was MBC, a public broadcaster, allowed to air that live and rebroadcast it after the 8 pm news bulletin but it also included the item in its bulletin, despite being obviously in bad taste. Reason? Malewezi doesn’t deserve respect because he resigned from UDF and joined opposition PPM. Campaign, the Muluzi style.
Surprisingly, despite that the Communications Act doesn’t allow the electronic media to take sides in campaign coverage and that the Electoral Commission’s own code of conduct demands that the media balances its coverage of election campaigns, avoiding mudslinging and giving the other party the right to reply, Muluzi’s conduct didn’t worry the Electoral Commission.
Instead, it is so worried with the Public Affairs Committee (PAC) and its affiliates—Blantyre Synod and Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) and the Episcopal Conference of Malawi—that it has decided to remove them from the list of NGOs accredited to conduct civic and voter education. Why? Their members facilitated the setting up of the Mgwirizano Coalition by the opposition. Therefore, they are biased.
Could the real reason be that Muluzi has openly expressed concern that the Church doesn’t favour the UDF/Aford coalition and is therefore likely to be biased towards the opposition? Electoral Commission has had problems with PAC before and it later turned out that the concerns, ably articulated as the EC’s own, were actually contained in a letter from UDF Secretary General Kennedy Makwangwala.
Assuming that the scheme to remove the Church NGOs is carried out, then there will obviously be a problem of reaching out to the rural masses with civic and voter education. These are the institutions that permeate the rural. So, without them, we can only expect a substantial increase in null-and-void votes.
But isn’t it ridiculous that the whole hullabaloo about lack of objectivity is unsubstantiated? The Electoral Commission should’ve based their concern on actual cases of bias in the conduct of civic and voter education. That way, not only would it be justified to drop them from the list but the actual culprits would also have to end up in jail.
But basing it on Muluzi’s concern only helps reinforce the perception that the Electoral Commission itself takes sides. And if perceptions were a valid basis for action, why is Justice James Kalaile still with the Electoral Commission when he is perceived by the opposition and some NGOs as being pro-UDF?
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