The Human Rights Commission (the Commission), carried out a comprehensive monitoring of all the processes in the May 2014 Tripartite Elections, and the state of affairs prior to, during and post the elections. This is in line with its mandate of promoting and protecting human rights in Malawi. The monitoring primarily aimed at collecting factual data on which basis an assessment of how free, fair, transparent and credible the elections were, would be made. This process has informed the Commission’s recommendations to relevant stakeholders on improvements in the administration, management, and participation in elections, as well as the legal safeguards that need to be in place. This is necessary in order to inform the actions of all stakeholders on Malawi’s efforts in safeguarding democracy through one of its fundamental building block of free and equal suffrage. Given the various unresolved concerns about the process of the elections, the Commission continued to monitor the post elections environment for a 5 months period, up to September, 2014. Based on its extensive elections monitoring, the Commission’s main finding is that Malawi failed to administer fair, transparent and credible elections, and to address the irregularities which besieged the electoral process. Within what is always a limited scope of election monitoring the Commission did not carry out in-depth investigations to determine and conclude if the various flaws and irregularities in the process, management and administration of the elections were a result of electoral fraud and rigging. The Commission therefore while stating that that the May 2014 Elections were not fair, transparent and credible, due to the massive irregularities and flaws, the Commission has not addressed the issue as to whether or not the various shortfalls were a result of a systematic rigging the elections and if so, by whom. In a forward looking spirit, the Commission recommends that lessons should be drawn from the administration and management of the May 2014 Elections, to avoid a replication of its shortcomings in future elections. Building on its main finding, the Commission notes that notwithstanding the flawed electoral foundation on which the current administration was ushered in, Government has already demonstrated commitment to governance, rule of law, human rights, and in particular the reform of the electoral laws. To ensure progress over the long term, the current administration should remain steadfast to fulfilling the various obligations that it has in the strengthening of democracy in Malawi. Most importantly, the government should continue to make electoral reform a priority and work with civil society, political parties and other stakeholders to implement necessary changes. In a related vein the Commission further observed that the 2014 Tripartite Elections presented a critical turning point for Malawi’s democracy, as the people of Malawi placed a high value on their vote. The elections saw a high turnout in both the number of registered voters as well as the number of people that cast their votes, against the odds that characterized the elections, which could have easily precipitated into an apathetic condition. Clearly, the elections saw the people of Malawi firmly asserting the “power of the Ballot” and vigorously demanding and exercising their fundamental and single most important political right; “the right to vote”. This signifies the resoluteness of the people of Malawi to exercise the fundamental right to vote and bring to a point of accountability all holders of political offices, thereby executing the right and responsibility to hire and fire the political leadership at the levels of Councilors, Members of Parliament and the presidency. This is in accord with the fundamental principle espoused in section 12 of the Constitution, that “the authority to exercise power of the state is conditional upon the sustained trust of the people of Malawi and that trust can only be maintained through open, accountable, and transparent government and informed democratic choice”. Worthy of noting is the resilience displayed by the people during what turned out to be an overly protracted process, filled with varying levels of uncertainties, during the results determination phase and peacefully waiting for it to be duly and lawfully concluded. This epitomizes a significant maturing of democracy in Malawi. Together, all political players, the different stakeholders and most importantly, the people of Malawi, managed to avert violence and channel what was a potentially volatile situation into an atmosphere of orderliness, lawfulness and peace and calm. The Commission emphasizes that in managing the post-elections period, all stakeholders must not lose sight of the tensions which may continue to simmer as a result of the various contentious issues that arose from the elections results, and therefore, devote time to putting strategies that ensure long term preservation of peace. However, all these gains made are pitied against the various elements in the elections that culminated into seriously undermining the freeness, fairness and credibility of the elections. The level of unpreparedness in the administration and management of the elections demonstrated by the myriad of logistical shortfalls throughout the process, which ranged from delay in delivery of polling materials; late opening of polling stations; acute shortages of voting materials; discrepancies in numbers of the vote count; irregular conduct by some polling staff, including presiding officers, and the poor state of security and storage of cast votes; underpin the conclusion of the Commission. The Commission has noted that the shortfalls were not isolated incidents, as they were replicated in many polling centers, pointing to a possibility of either gross system failure due to negligence or manipulation. Immediately, this begs the question, to which Malawi deserves answers, as to whether or not there was a systematic machination at play to undermine the peoples’ right to vote. Several critical issues that negatively affect the principles of free, fair and credible elections including: abuse of state resources by the ruling party; challenges with the voter registration and voter’s roll verification; as well as pockets of violence during both the campaign and voting period; and challenges relating to intraparty democracy, were also observed to have marred these elections. While within the scope of this analysis it is not possible to determine as to whether the absence of these electoral irregularities would have changed the outcome of the elections, the Commission asserts that, it is not necessarily only the outcome that matters. Both the process and outcome should and does matter. These two aspects are mutually exclusive. In the view of the Commission, the right to vote is guaranteed not only by according the franchise to the people, but also by safeguarding the manner in which it is exercised, i.e. the process, as well as, the outcome. Therefore, in light of its main findings, the Commission envisages that it’s home-grown, constructive and self-introspective assessment of the May 2014 Tripartite Elections will prompt Malawi to begin to soberly reflect on what went right and wrong with the May 2014 Tripartite Elections and draw lessons for the future. On a balance of probabilities, the several acclamations that have since been made on the seem to tip in favour of a free, fair, transparent and credible process. The question is, on what standards and in whose interest has this verdict been made? The Commission’s report has attempted to, in as far as it is feasible provide evidence-based answers to these pressing issues. What is most important now is that clearly, the 2014 Tripartite Elections show that the issue of continued electoral reform at the level of laws, policies, procedures and administrative arrangements need to be firmly placed in the democracy development agenda for Malawi. On the way forward, Malawi needs to work on ensuring that future elections are as much as possible conducted in a manner that upholds fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution, and carry out thorough processes which should be characterised by narrowing levels of inequality, political pluralism, transparency, accountability and an increase in the level of the confidence of the people in both the process and outcome. Ambassador Sophie Asimenye Kalinde, Chairperson
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 13:56:06 +0000
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