By Kelvin Sulungwe
You need to calm down to understand the ongoing election case
Unfortunately, many of us do not wish to take time and understand what’s really going in the constitutional court. We are quick to embrace that which best suits our interests or those of our parties. Good thing for you, I am here to help you see things as they are.
First and foremost, one needs to understand that in this case, although Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and UTM Party are both petitioners, they are not really speaking the same language. Similarly, both Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are both respondents, but their interest somehow collide.
Take it this way:
UTM is challenging the whole electoral process, without an emphasis on challenging results
MCP is mainly challenging results, claiming their candidate won
Since the case started, from the first witness Saulos Chilima (SKC), you could tell that UTM focus has largely been on irregularities, challenging the process from voting to counting. That is why when asked about the results, SKC did not want to challenge the results in court but opted to carry on with looking at irregularities. He was very clever, so too were UTM witnesses after him.
MCP’s highly praised witness Daud Suleman brought a very different issue altogether, challenging MEC’s IT system which he has demonstrated without any difficulty how he believes it was manipulated to give a certain candidate winning votes. He claims, in his explanation that his candidate won the elections, however, his own demonstration still pointed to candidate number 7 as winner.
If you were to ask me, I would tell you that UTM put up a good case than MCP which has been very weak and indecisive from the beginning. Remember their narrative? From announce the results now to hold on, don’t announce. Then came no, we need a recount and later fresh elections. Consistency is everything ladies and gentlemen.
UTM, from the beginning of this whole thing has claimed and maintained one thing. Fresh elections. That is why UTM’s evidence has aligned itself to this narrative.
MCP’s Suleman evidence can easily be defeated. I have already outlined this. On the other hand, UTM brings the headache.
When Ben Phiri went to court on Friday, he focussed much on diluting UTM’s witnesses and not MCP. Like I said, MEC is the one to handle MCP for they to a large extent directly challenge the results, not the process. Whatever it is, they wanted to be winners. Not UTM, not DPP.
By playing victim and diluting UTM, DPP knows that they will get past the court. In other words, even if there will be a rerun, let it be because of irregularities by MEC and not rigging by DPP. That is the narrative in this whole issue. Ben Phiri says, there were problems, but these problems did not just affect UTM or MCP, they also affected them.
Further, he says, MEC officials were informing us of these problems we all made decisions as one. That is why you have in some cases, form 66 with problems but fully signed by all party monitors. Why? They made a decision as one and you will even see that in some cases, especially in the central region, it was MCP leading in these areas.
We do not know how the judges will take it after all witnesses have finished. Unfortunately, many people expected Ben Phiri and DPP to dwell much on Suleman and MCP’s evidence. That won’t be happening. They are not dumb. They know that the evidence carries little if not nothing and it is for MEC to take it head on. Real danger is on UTM’s narrative.
With all due respect, protocols observed.
