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| Columns |
| My Diary |
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by
Steven Nhlane, 07 November 2004
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13:55:22
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High Court ruling good precedent on elections
Wednesday's High Court ruling that quashed results of the May 20 Parliamentary elections in Mzimba West is a landmark development and one that will have far-reaching repercussions on the country's political scene.
There was a similar case during the 1999 elections when the High Court ruling led to the MCP MP Samuel Gama for Lilongwe City Southwest losing his seat to the UDF candidate Iqbal Omar. Gama had warmed the seat as an MP for sometime. What was being contested in that case were votes for Livimbo polling centre in the constituency which, for one reason or another, had not been delivered until after three days. The rest is history. But the bone of contention in that case was more straight forward than the present one.
The ruling in this week's case is a landmark one because of the reasons the court used to justify nullification of the results. These are that the winner used public resources for campaign; that there were threats; that the voters' roll was not verified and that determination of results took place before sorting out irregularities in the voting process.
For one thing, I expect the ruling, which the defendant (Loveness Gondwe) has said will challenge in an appeal court, to open a can of worms for the Malawi Electoral Commission. The ruling also sets a precedent on similar cases that might arise during future elections or may already be in court.
For another, the Mzuzu High Court ruling will teach the MEC and other players a few lessons on how or how not to hold elections.
In particular, the ruling will give a big challenge to the commission which will now be required to attend to and sort out all complaints brought before it for fear of the disgruntled or disenfranchised parties successfully challenging the results later. This damages the image of the commission.
There are a lot of candidates who petitioned the courts and complained to the Commission that the May 20 elections were not free and fair because of the same reasons as those cited by the complainant in the Mzimba West constituency case.
Thank God the Commission now has a new chairperson, who it is hoped, will improve the electoral landscape. Unfortunately, the new Chairperson Justice Anastasia Msosa will not start with a clean slate. The good thing is that she knows there is no honeymoon for her. She will have to begin by removing the mess left or created by her predecessor, who admitted to the nation at a Necof meeting just before the elections, that he was incapable of conducting free and fair elections. The former chairperson said there was absolutely nothing he could do to bring sanity onto the electoral landscape and confessed that he had failed to address stakeholders' concerns on the elections. And they were many.
They included the Commission’s failure to enable public broadcasters to provide equitable airtime to all parties and to stop former president Bakili Muluzi from abusing state resources during his campaign. The court later ruled that it was a breach of the electoral law for the UDF to use state resources for campaign. The commission also failed to caution Muluzi against use of abusive and unstately language.
The commission under Kalaile also failed to act on the snatching of voter certificates by the UDF functionaries; it failed to arrest the increasing incidents of violence mostly perpetrated by UDF and to bring credibility to the voters' roll.
The electorate will no longer forgive a chairperson who contents himself or herself with confessing their weaknesses to the nation and hope that it will be business as usual. Like Catherine Gotani Mkandawire did when she felt she had been short-changed on the elections, the disgruntled parties will now go to court knowing they can salvage something out of the mess. Thanks to Judge Lovemore Chikopa's ruling.
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