My Fellow Malawians,
Now that the dust has somewhat settled on the monumental court ruling made by our constitutional courts, I feel it is important that I speak to you as your leader and share with you some of my thoughts regarding how we should move forward as a nation.
My fellow Malawians, although I was unable to physically attend court during the hearing of this important elections case, I ardently followed the proceedings and I am most impressed with the manner in which our judges and all of us Malawians conducted ourselves. I noticed that Malawians even in the most rural parts of the country were glued to their radios during the hearings, as they keenly waited to see the dispensation of justice by our courts.
In a very special way, I would like to personally commend the five judges of the constitutional court who heard this matter and gave their ruling and interpretation of the constitution in a fair, clear and considered manner. It gives credit to our judiciary. It is because of their integrity and competence that Malawi has been held as a shining light of democracy to the whole world. I could not be more proud of them and of our justice system.
My Fellow Malawians, you all know that I was a respondent in this matter and that the ruling and the judgement did not go my way. This is the way that all court proceedings go. One party wins and one party loses. The test of personal maturity and indeed the test of political and democratic maturity is to be able to accept an astute ruling of a competent court such as this one with grace, to learn lessons from the statements made by the court and to forge ways of moving forward as a stronger and unified country because of it.
In this regard, I would like to congratulate Dr Lazarus Chakwera and Dr Saulosi Chilima for the victory, and to commend them for bringing the matter to the court so that our judiciary could have an opportunity to examine the way the elections were conducted and make a determination as to whether there was need for Malawians to vote again.
My fellow Malawians, I would like to state categorically that I fully accept the court’s ruling as credible, fair and competent. As president and leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), I urge our party members and our supporters, and all DPP cadets to accept and respect the court’s ruling and move forward as a party. Furthermore, in light of the observations and recommendations made by the court in the ruling I urge our legislature immediately to begin to implement the amendments to the electoral laws as recommended by the judges.
My Fellow Malawians, the elections case and especially its ultimate conclusion in the judgment of the Court has highlighted the many fundamental governance failures and challenges in the Malawi Electoral Commission. Worth mentioning are some of the following governance anomalies: unlawful delegation of powers by the Commissioners to the Chief Executive officer, failure by the Commission to use procedures prescribed under the law, handling of electoral complaints without transparency, use of tippex and other manual alterations on the result tally sheets, unsigned result sheets by presiding officers, failure to account for missing and additional votes, signing of result sheets for two constituents by one presiding officer when each constituency had its own presiding officer, suspected forged signatures, anomalies in the logbooks in form of lack of signatures, discrepancy in form of presidential results and absence of log books in some instances altogether, announcing results without conducting a thorough audit and verifying the same, announcing the Presidential results in disregard of the complaints lodged, use of result tally sheets without security features, altering results without regard to original figures, uploading delayed results after alterations and many other anomalies which clearly undermined the quality and integrity of the May, 2019 Presidential elections.
I wish to assure all Malawians that as a President and political leader that believes in a democratic society where the will of the people is upheld, I will do all in my power to ensure that such electoral irregularities should never occur again in our democracy. The Malawi electoral commission needs fully to be reformed and that from now onwards, it needs to do its work competently, impartially and transparently so as to regain the trust of the people of Malawi. I call upon all Commissioners of the Electoral Commission to allow us to move into the process of reconstituting the commission.
The examination by the constitutional court of the work of the Malawi Electoral Commission, and the many faults and flaws that have been revealed has made me recognize the need for us to re-consider and re-examine the manner in which all other public bodies and institutions carry out their work in the country. For this reason, I will constitute a special commission to investigate the manner in which all Public institutions discharge their functions. I will expect that commission to assess and determine whether public institutions in the country are doing their work in accordance with the law and to provide to Government reports of their findings and recommendations. I make this observation bearing in mind the fact that in recent times, there have been many allegations of illegal practices in many public institutions including illegal hiring of employees, alleged illegal selling of land to cabinet ministers and many other such allegations. Further I wish to give the people of Malawi my solemn promise that I will personally endeavor to ensure that relevant steps will immediately be taken to implement all meritorious and practical recommendations.
My Fellow Malawians, in conclusion, I also wish to announce that I, Arthur Peter Mutharika, will not appeal against the Judgment of the Constitutional Court. I have decided to retire from active politics and spend the rest of my days with my darling wife in peace and solitude away from politics. I have informed my party, the DPP to find a new torch bearer for the coming fresh elections for I will not contest along with the other candidates. I would hasten to add at this juncture that I hope the People of Malawi will endeavor to choose a youthful leader that will effectively implement the reforms outlined above. The future of Malawi belongs to the youth.
Be rest assured, however, that prior to my retirement I intend to live up to my promise, to put in place a framework to ensure that forthwith, the will of the electorate will never again be undermined or circumvented by incompetence and mismanagement of public officials as we have witnessed in the previous elections. I ask for your prayers in these last days of my Presidency. It has been a pleasure and an honour to serve you.
God bless each and every one of you and God Bless Malawi.
Note: According to Allan Ntata this is the speech President Mutharika needed to give after the adverse Court Ruling
