16 “Behold, I have created the blacksmith who blows the coals in the fire, who brings forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the spoiler to destroy. 17 No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me,” says the Lord.— Isaiah 54:16-17
The UNDP Malawi and the MEC requested audit Report from the Jordan-based auditors, BDO, as part of the support in polling centers in the May 21, 2019 tripartite elections. Among the tasks was to verify that the results received at the constituency tally centres and The National Tally Centre are mathematically correct.
According to the Audit Report, marked Confidential and signed on May 31, 2019, the summary showcases audit findings from the forms MEC presented to BDO at the National Tally Centre highlighting the following: 273 Tippexed (corrected with the white corrector), 65 Manually amended forms, 45 Forms with missing signatures, and 66 Forms with missing political parties signatures.
Last week, this column posed questions to Prophet Bushiri, following his press conference where Malawian journalists were briefed on his desire for peace to return in Malawi. The article titled “Some questions and pointers for Prophet Bushiri” was not well-received by some of his followers and even those of the DPP; numerous comments flighted on social media looked at the article as querying the man of God. While there is inadequate space here to counter the general flow of those rants, the BDO report (despite being confidential, has been made publicly available all over the place) appears to throw weight to the side of the millions of Malawians that have doubted the integrity of the election result announcement made by MEC.
The auditors report can verify only 60 percent of the presidential tally sheets; while 24 percent of the sheets were Tippexed, 6 percent manually amended, another 6 percent had missing political parties signature, and 4 percent there were missing signatures. By simple arithmetic, are the main bone of contention in the election result announcement: this is the reason Malawians are demonstrating.
Again, by simple observation of the audit report, a snapshot of Malawian voter turnout, registered on average 70 percent. That is great turnout for the country. The lowest turnout at 68 percent was in Mwanza, Dedza, and Mchinji. The highest turnout at 83 percent was in Likoma Island, which boosted the northern region with an average of 80 percent turnout. This high turnout highlights the interest Malawians have in the elections, on both sides.
Alas, Malawians have lost confidence in the exercise, due to the anomalies on so many tally sheets that are elucidated in the audit.
According to BDO findings “a significant number of Form 66 were over scribbled, as a result, most of Form 66 became a mess and therefore needed to be replaced by duplicate forms, manually prepared forms, which were completed at the constituency tally centres. Some of the forms were excessively Tippexed by POs who used Tippex to do their corrections.”
How was it possible that presiding officers had Tippex (white correction fluid) in the tally centers? Who provided these? We are in the age of computers, purchasing officers in many companies do not order correction fluid. The dubious activities on form 66, brings the entire election process into great disrepute.
The report recounts numerous wrong doings during the tally exercises, among them suspected manipulations of results with many presiding officers leaving their stations, signatures not being attained from all parties; some presiding officers were unwilling to recognize the role of the auditors, where there were some centers that wanted to throw stones at the auditors. The MDF stepped in to stop this.
Then there was numerous capturing of wrong information, submission of incorrect forms.
In short, the May 21 tripartite elections in Malawi give the appearance of this being our first ever to hold elections. These were not our first elections. We’ve done this before: in the one-party times, in a referendum, in the multiparty setting.
What went wrong in May 2019? It’s not rocket science. It’s not difficult to see. The answer lies in the fact that some people want to cheat at this; they’ve gone to the supreme extent to accomplish this, including giving monetary handouts, eliminating people in the know, including their own people, and trying to silence opposition viewpoints.
This is not what democracy looks like.
