CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Akwete Sande, Malawi, March 1999
THEME = ELECTIONS
This year, Malawi will be holding its second multiparty elections.
In the run-up to the 1994 general elections,
a number of NGOs played a leading role in providing civic education
to voters who had grown used to a different form of voting during 31 years of dictatorship
A quasi-religious organisation, the Public Affairs Committee (PAC), whose membership embraced all opposition groups and the various Churches, was the legitimate body which supervised the drawing up of a new Constitution and the organisation of the 1993 referendum. This led to general elections the following year. The PAC conducted all the negotiations with the government, to ensure that a credible election took place. After the elections, the PAC re-defined its role to include that of being a watchdog on government activities to check all abuses by the ruling party.
However, things became a bit difficult because the PAC was not trusted by either the government or the Opposition. This became clear when in 1996, the PAC failed to reconcile the government and the Opposition, when the latter staged a boycott of Parliament. The boycott was triggered by President Muluzi's appointment of opposition Members of Parliament (MP)s to the cabinet without the consent of their party-leaders.
Donor organisations have pledged over a million dollars for civic education. And there are over eight human rights organizations which have been registered in the past five years. A former politician, Shyley Kondowe, formed the Malawi Institute of Democratic and Economic Affairs (MIDEA); Vera Chirwa, the wife of the late prominent politician, Orton Chirwa, has her own organization called «Carer». Ollen Mwalubunju spent years in exile and has organised the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR). The Catholic Church, has the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. These four organisations have formed themselves into consortium through which they have formulated a programme of action. However, they are accused of not consulting other organisations, including the PAC, before formulating their plans of action. They are alleged to have approached donor organisation, presenting themselves as the only legitimate group to run the civic education campaign.
Recently, donor organisations donated thousands of dollars for a start-up campaign which included publishing articles in selected weekly papers. Needless to say, other publications were surprised that they were not approached to carry similar articles.
Recently, donor organisations organized a meeting to consult with the NGOs. Journalists were barred from the meeting, but an inside source told reporters there had been a fiery exchange of words, with the four NGOs in the consortium being accused by other NGOs as being «fronts for political parties, especially the ruling United Democratic Front». The same NGOs also accused members of the consortium of «being in the Opposition's pay».
The Electoral Commission is the main supervisor of the elections and has announced it will work with all NGOs, and will ensure that civic education is fairly conducted, without giving undue advantage to any political party.
Meanwhile, Parliament has made amendments to some sections of the Electoral Law to ensure that the elections are free. There will be an official campaign period for the political parties (starting started???? in March this year) and ending three months later. To ensure that voter registration certificates are not sold, voters will have identity cards, and only one voting ballot paper will be used, carrying photographs of both Presidential and Parliamentary candidates.
The 1994 elections were widely hailed as a success, but subsequent by-elections have been marred by anomalies such as buying of registration certificates and voter apathy.
«We want to ensure that all legitimate voters turn out to vote. To achieve this, we need many organisations to be involved in civic education», says Justice Hanjahanja, Chairman of the Electoral Commission. He says that donor organisations have pledged to fund the elections, estimated to cost over 20 million US dollars.
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CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 1999 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement