By Rick Dzida
When activist Timothy Mtambo was hired to organise violent nationwide demonstrations with a view of forcing Jane Ansah, former Chairperson of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to resign, many gullible Malawians were convinced that Jane had indeed tampered with 2019 presidential elections.
However, in the spirit of ‘the truth shall set me free’, Jane Ansah stood her ground vowing that she would step down after the court’s ruling on the matter.
Jane Ansah indeed tendered her resignation as the Chair of MEC after the Supreme court of appeal upheld the Constitutional Court verdict that MEC under her tutelage was incompetent and negligent in managing 2019 presidential elections.
However, four years down the line, many gullible Malawians have woken up from their deep slumber and have now given Jane Ansah a benefit of doubt that probably she was just a victim of miscarriage of justice by our incompetent and biased courts of law.
In this discourse, an attempt is made to outline how and why Jane Ansah was legally victimised by our justice system.
First, results of 2020 presidential elections were similar to those of controversial 2019 presidential elections.
Statistically, the aggregate votes attained by Chakwera and Chilima in the 2019 presidential race were more than the sum of votes from Peter Mutharika and Atupele Muluzi. The trend stubbornly remained the same in the 2020 presidential election.
Second, both Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal confirmed that there was no evidence that 2019 presidential elections were rigged.
It was therefore surprising why the court went ahead to annul 2019 presidential election purely based on the mere presence of electoral irregularities that are usually prevalent in all elections across the globe.
Third, during the cross-examination, the main complainant, Dr. Saulos Chilima, conceded that there was no evidence that the use of Tippex and the presence of other electorate irregularities affected his votes.
It was funny to hear that they were complaining about electoral irregularities that did not affect their own votes.
Fourth, the court declared that MEC was incompetent and negligent in managing 2019 presidential elections yet it went ahead to endorse 2019 parliamentary and local government elections managed by the same incompetent MEC. This is total contradiction of the highest order.
Fifth, a 50% + 1 majority was introduced in 2020 but yet the court faulted MEC for declaring Prof. Peter Mutharika a winner of the 2019 presidential election based on first past the post majority. The law could not have been applied retrospectively.
Sixth, the 2020 Constitutional Court introduced constitutional anomalies in an attempt to victimize MEC and Jane Ansah in particular.
Currently, the constitutional term ‘majority’ is equivocally and concurrently being applied as 50% + 1 for presidential elections but first past the post for both parliamentary and local government elections.
Another adverse effect of the erroneous 2020 Constitutional Court verdict is that by giving President Chakwera a five-year term from a presidential by-election, most members of parliament will be in office for over 5 years in violation of their constitutional mandated term.
By conducting a rerun after Peter Mutharika has served one year in his second term, the 2020 presidential election was supposed to be handled as a by-election.
In plain truth, the 2020 Constitutional Court verdict was unconstitutional.
Seventh, in an attempt to victimise MEC and Jane Ansah, the 2020 Constitutional Court acted ultra vires by overriding the decision of the apex court on the interpretation of the word ‘majority’ that appears in the Malawi Constitution.
The 2020 Concourt erred by committing the argumentum ad dictionarium fallacy in which it simply pulled the definition of the term ‘majority’ from the black law dictionary without considering its constitutional context.
Eighth, Judge Kenyatta Nyirenda delivered an illogical verdict that the existence of an inquorate MEC that presided over the 2020 fresh presidential elections did not affect the legitimacy and legality of the results of the said elections.
How can a poisoned tree produce good and harmless fruits? Obviously, an inquorate MEC had no constitutional mandate to declare presidential candidate, Dr. Lazarus Chakwera, of 2020 presidential election the winner.
Ninth, the court disregarded official endorsement by political party monitors, local and international observers that 2019 tripartite general elections were conducted in a free, fair and transparent manner.
Last but not least, the court ordered that fresh presidential elections should be held instead of a re-run. This was a deliberate move. A re-run could have proved the court wrong in their verdict.
In a re-run, electoral coalitions, new presidential candidates and new voters were not supposed to take part in the elections.
In the case where no presidential candidate attained 50% + 1 of the cast votes in the first round, the top two candidates were supposed to contest in the subsequent run-off elections.
In conclusion, as final arbiters, the Malawi Judiciary is implored to execute justice without fear or favour.
As for Jane Ansah, we continuously and empathetically feel that she was victimized because of politics and the gullibility of most Malawians. Fortunately, many Malawians are slowly rising from their deep slumber.
We therefore wish , Jane Ansah, all the best as she is standing as a parliamentary aspirant in Ntcheu district.
She is indeed proving to us that a secret to life is to fall down once and quickly get up twice.
