As predicted Malawi President Peter Mutharika plans to challenge constitutional court’s decision to overturn his 2019 poll victory, spokesman says.
Malawian President Peter Mutharika plans to challenge a court’s decision to overturn his 2019 election victory, his spokesman has said, in a move that could lead to fresh opposition protests.
After six months of hearings that gripped the country, five top judges on Monday ruled that Mutharika was “not duly elected”, citing enormous and widespread irregularities including the use of correction fluid on results sheets.
The judges ordered a fresh poll within 150 days and said Mutharika will remain president until the new election.
Malawi President said this judgement is not the end of litigation process in the May 21 elections case. Malawi is a country of laws. As a lawful nation, there remains a number of laws and legal processes and procedures provided in our Constitution to regulate how we conduct ourselves to resolve our situation.
The most important thing is that we must preserve our constitutional order and ensure that Malawi continues to be stable and peaceful.
The judges in their offensive reading of the judgement showed their bias and prejudgment of the case. It was rather strange that the judges felt the need to insult a Supreme Court judge, Justice Jane Ansah – calling her incompetent. It was the same “incompetent” MEC and Jane Ansah who presided over the Parliamentary elections that saw about 193 MPs put in office.
The judiciary cannot instruct nor prescribe to Parliament on what laws should be passed. Parliamentarians are elected by the voters to make laws — not judges. Parliamentarians do not report to the courts, but the electorate.
There was a complete misrepresentation of the electoral systems by the judges.
Malawi currently uses First Past the Post Westminster system. The US, Canada, India, and the many Caribbean and African states still use the system. The First Past the Post is a subset of the majoritarian system.
Judges went way above their Heads”
The judges are not international electoral systems experts. They should have accepted that limitation and stay out of it – especially misinterpretation of the systems.
Another system which the court are forcing the parliamentarian to adopt is the “Majority Wins” system. This system is what many call a 50+1 system. But in a country, such as Malawi, with over 60 political parties on a ballot paper, it is not possible to achieve this.
The question is, will it mean that when any of the parties fail to get 50+1, they will then head for run-offs until a winner emerges?
Or would the parties that form a coalition to get to 50+1 be the ones that elect a President to rule? This system has its own limitations and challenges, even on the democratic side.
In South Africa, as an example – this system has failed, especially for local government elections. As and when political allegiances change, the leaders get changed. One metropolitan city is on its second Mayor, within the same term. But it is the people who suffer, while those with numbers to swing things to 50+1 play politics.
The system, to a degree, is highly undemocratic. A party with the much needed 5% to cross the halfway mark wields so much power. They can make so many demands just to sell their little percentage to help a party get into power.
When politics cloud judgement, judges try their hardest to dictate to the Parliamentarians like they are school children.
The Majority Wins, or a 50+1 system, is not the only political system in the world. It is rather shocking that the judges saw it fit to prescribe it. But their political leanings clouded their judgement.
However, the five judges’ justices Healey Potani, Mike Tembo, Dingiswayo Madise, Ivy Kamanga and Redson Kapindu., who many see as partisans went beyond their Mandate, further ordering that the new elections be held under a majoritarian system, a legal provision which was rejected by the Malawi Parliament some two years ago, who instead opted for simple majority system?
‘Win for democracy’
Mutharika was declared the winner of the May 21 election with 38.5 percent of the vote, followed by Lazarus Chakwera, with 35 percent, and former Vice President Saulos Chilima in third place, with 20 percent.
The top two contenders then petitioned the court to have the results nullified, alleging several irregularities.
On Tuesday, Chakwera, the leader of the main opposition Malawi Congress Party, hailed the landmark verdict as a victory for democracy.
Addressing more than 10,000 jubilant opposition supporters who thronged his party’s headquarters in Lilongwe, Chakwera said: “This is a great day.”
“It is democracy that has won. It is Malawi that has won. It is Africa that has won. And now justice has been served,” he said.
Call for calm
In their unanimous ruling, the constitutional court judges concurred that “the irregularities and anomalies have been so widespread, systematic and grave … that the integrity of the results has been seriously compromised.”
The court said only 23 percent of the result sheets had been able to be verified, and that the outcome announced by the electoral commission “cannot be trusted as a true reflection of the will of the voters”.
It is the first time a presidential election has been challenged on legal grounds in Malawi since independence from Britain in 1964, and only the second African vote result to be cancelled, after the 2017 Kenya presidential vote.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) commended the court for “upholding the Malawian constitution” and pledged to “support … the election process”.
The international community has urged calm.
“We call upon all Malawians to respect the decision of the court and to adhere to the path outlined in Malawi’s constitution and electoral laws, including on the right to appeal,” said Tibor Nagy, the top US diplomat for Africa.
