Running for Parliament in Malawi now costs K88.8 million on average, a price that is shutting out many citizens and testing the country’s democracy, study findings show.
Research findings by Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI) in partner-ship with the University of Texas of the United States of America show that during the campaign for the September 16 2025 Gen-eral Election, parliamentary candidates spent six times more than they did in 2019. In 2019, the average campaign expenditure was K14.8 million.
For candidates who polled above 20 percent of the vote, average spending rose to K166.6 million, according to the study.
At K88.8 million, the report, titled ‘Çost of politics in Ma-lawi’ argues that the country risks a Parliament dominated by the wealthy, a development that may have direct implications for rep-resentation, accountability and public trust.
Lead researcher Michael Wahman, a public affairs expert at the University of Texas in Austin, said the sharp rise in campaign costs threatens democratic representation.
“Already in 2019 we said it was high, but now it’s six times as high. This has huge consequences. It excludes most Malawians from ever having a shot at being in this primary democratic institution,” he said.
Westminster Foundation for Democracy regional director for Africa Michael Nevin said the findings should trigger urgent debate on po-litical finance reforms.
“The cost of politics is rising, rising, rising, not just in Malawi, but eve-rywhere. Who is excluded if money keeps being the central issue to run in politics? It tends to be women, young people, certainly peo-ple with disabilities, and others,” said the former British High Com-missioner to Malawi.
Where the money goes
The report tracked spending at every stage of the race and estab-lished that some candidates spent an average of K30.5 million to win a political party nomination.
Here the stakes are high based on the perception that securing the ticket of a dominant political party is the surest path to Parliament.
By party, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) primaries were the most ex-pensive at an average of K40 million per candidate followed by Dem-ocratic Progressive Party (DPP) at K31 million, UTM Party at K16 million and United Democratic Front (UDF) at K13 million.
The study broke down the costs of general election campaign as follows:
Rallies: K16.7 million on average.
Constituency projects: K14.8 million on average, including road re-pairs, boreholes and other infrastructure. Some candidates spent over K20 million.
Campaign materials: K8.8 million average.
Donations to local associations: K5.4 million average.
Logistics: K2.4 million average.
Handouts: K2.3 million average.
The report also said pre-campaign spending added up to the costs, with rallies costing K5.2 million average, constituency projects at K5.1 million, party-branded materials at K4.1 million and donations at K1.9 million.
The researchers caution that handout figures are likely under-reported “given the self-reported nature of our data and the fact that handouts are technically illegal even if the law is poorly en-forced”.
Parties weigh in
DPP spokesperson Shadric Namalomba in an interview said the governing party is reviewing the conduct of primary elections, in-cluding introduction of clearly defined campaign periods, struc-tured joint meetings, stronger regulation of campaign activities and restrictions on unnecessarily expensive practices.
He said: “The party supports the introduction of reasonable, en-forceable and transparent expenditure limits that apply equally to all political parties and candidates. Such limits must be accompa-nied by credible monitoring, disclosure requirements and meaning-ful sanctions for non-compliance.
“Internally, the party is considering additional measures, including the disclosure of major campaign expenditure, restrictions on ex-cessive spending and stronger controls against the use of money, goods or favours to influence primary elections.”
UTM Party spokesperson Felix Njawala said they do not have special rules on campaign financing, such that candidates primarily fund their own campaigns, while the party provides additional support through contributions from party supporters.
“The ban on handouts has not been effectively enforced. How many candidates have actually been reprimanded for violating it? The entire nation witnessed even the President distributing handouts, political parties raised concerns, yet no meaningful ac-tion was taken. The real challenge is not the existence of the law but its enforcement,” he said.
In a separate interview, UDF secretary general Genarino Lemani said the party supports constructive dialogue on strengthening campaign finance regulations, including improving disclosure mechanisms, provided the rules apply equally to all political parties and candidates.
“As UDF, we are reviewing our internal processes to ensure that our primary elections remain as fair, transparent and affordable as pos-sible,” he said.
In his reaction, Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CDM) executive director Boniface Chibwana said venturing in other business as compared to politics has less dividends.
“People would still take risks in joining politics because the returns are more than in the corporate world. We need a change when it comes to party contributions by party membership so that there is enhanced ownership,” he said.
There was no responses from MCP by press time yesterday.
What it means for democracy
Accountability expert Willy Kambwandira said the expenses show that public office is now treated as a business venture with the re-port hinting that rising costs entrench clientelism, exclude women and youth and raise corruption risks.
He said: “Public offices have ceased to be public service, becom-ing an investment to be recovered through corruption, patronage, abuse of public resources and ultimately State capture.
“If parliamentary races now cost this much, the financial stakes and corruption risks at presidential level are far worse. Our democracy will continue to be auctioned to the highest bidder.”
University of Malawi political scientist Gift Sambo linked the problem to Malawi’s candidate-centred system.
“Party labels and reputations alone cannot secure victory for aspir-ants or protect incumbents from anti-incumbency voting. This forc-es politicians to embark on costly short-term development projects as a strategy for securing immediate popularity,” he said.
Gaps in the law, new calls to tighten it
Malawi’s main regulatory tool is the Political Parties Act (PPA) of 2018, which established the Office of the Registrar of Political Par-ties (ORPP).
Section 41(1) prohibits any candidate, political party or person from issuing handouts during an election. Offenders face a fine of up to K10 million or five years’ imprisonment. In May 2025, government gazetted the Political Parties (Complaints Handling) Regulations to facilitate enforcement.
But the report says the PPA is not fit for purpose on campaign fi-nance.
“While recognising the existence of the PPA, it does not provide a comprehensive or operational framework for regulating candidate-level campaign expenditure, focusing instead on political party fi-nancing,” the report states.
Key gaps in the law include lack of expenditure ceilings for candi-dates, no clear mechanisms to track spending and no systematic monitoring of financial flows during election periods.
By September 2025, the Registrar of Political Parties Kizito Tenthani said his office had received 162 handouts-related complaints from across the country.
Legal minds note that the Act “provides no strong investigative machinery, no effective witness protection, no automatic adminis-trative sanctions and no serious institutional capacity”, making prosecutions difficult.
Private practice lawyer Benedicto Kondowe said reform is urgent.
He said: “When candidates spend beyond reasonable limits, there is a danger of corruption, patronage and pressure to misuse public resources after election.
“Party primaries, which are often extremely expensive and compet-itive, should also be addressed because they have become a ma-jor entry barrier for potential candidates.”
Kondowe proposed stronger disclosure rules, realistic spending lim-its, timely reporting of campaign financing sources and effective sanctions for violations.
Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament Esther Jolobala said the find-ings reflected the reality on the ground, with high campaign costs continuing to exclude women, young people and persons with dis-abilities from elective office.
“This is why we have been saying women, youth and people with disabilities are being excluded from politics. The majority of young people and women are not working, and their capacity cannot compete with men,” she said.
Jolobala said political parties should first discuss possible reforms through CMD before Parliament considers the necessary legislative amendments.
With Parliament now being urged to tighten the PPA, the debate has shifted from whether handouts are a problem to whether the law can be made to work.
