By Burnett Munthali
The ongoing dispute over the Malawi Electoral Commission’s (MEC) headquarters relocation raises an important constitutional and governance question: how far does the Commission’s independence extend when the government issues an administrative directive concerning the location of a public institution?
From the time of its creation, MEC operated from Blantyre. Its headquarters remained there through successive administrations, including governments led by the MCP, UDF, DPP, PP and the second MCP administration.
The situation changed under the previous MCP administration, when the Commission relocated its headquarters from Blantyre to Lilongwe in 2023 following a presidential Executive Order from the MCP government.
That history is important because MEC accepted and implemented the relocation at the time. The Commission’s own strategic documents acknowledge the move and explain it in administrative and operational terms.
The current government has now directed MEC to return its headquarters to Blantyre. President Peter Mutharika issued Executive Order No. 1 of 2025 directing MEC and other institutions to relocate to their former bases.
MEC, however, has resisted the directive and invoked its constitutional independence.
This creates an obvious question: if MEC accepted relocation from Blantyre to Lilongwe following a presidential Executive Order under the MCP government, why should it regard a subsequent government decision to return the institution to Blantyre as an automatic violation of its independence?
The distinction between electoral independence and administrative independence must be clearly understood.
MEC must be independent when conducting elections. Government must not dictate how the Commission registers voters, conducts elections, counts ballots, declares results or otherwise performs functions assigned to it by the Constitution and electoral laws.
But the physical location of its headquarters is fundamentally an administrative matter.
The government may therefore legitimately make a policy decision concerning where public institutions should be headquartered, provided that such a decision is lawful and does not interfere with the constitutional functions of those institutions.
This does not mean MEC should blindly obey every presidential directive. If the Commission believes an Executive Order is unconstitutional or exceeds presidential powers, it has every right to challenge it before the courts.
But while exercising that right, the Commission should not create the impression that constitutional independence places it completely outside the administrative authority of the state.
MEC is an independent constitutional institution, but it is not a state within a state.
The same constitutional order that protects MEC’s independence also establishes government and gives the Executive authority to administer the affairs of the country.
The proper question, therefore, is not whether MEC should obey the DPP government simply because it is the government of the day. The proper question is whether the Executive Order directing the relocation is lawful and constitutionally valid.
If the courts determine that the order is lawful, MEC should comply with it. If the courts determine that it unlawfully interferes with the Commission’s constitutional independence, the government should respect that judgment.
The danger lies in allowing political considerations to replace constitutional processes.
If MEC refuses to relocate solely because it disagrees with the policy of the government, that would raise legitimate questions about institutional neutrality. Equally, if the government seeks to dictate where MEC should operate in order to influence its electoral decisions, that would constitute an unacceptable threat to democratic institutions.
The principle should therefore apply regardless of which party occupies government.
An institution that accepted relocation from Blantyre to Lilongwe under an MCP government cannot convincingly argue that relocation itself is inherently incompatible with its independence. Likewise, a government cannot use an Executive Order concerning relocation as a backdoor mechanism for controlling the Commission’s electoral mandate.
MEC’s independence must be protected — but that independence must be understood as independence in performing its constitutional mandate, not immunity from every lawful administrative decision of government.
Ultimately, the courts should settle the dispute.
Until then, both MEC and government should avoid turning an administrative disagreement into a political confrontation. Malawi’s democratic institutions will be strengthened not when one side simply imposes its will, but when both sides submit their competing claims to the Constitution and accept the final determination of the courts.
