Delegates to a regional dialogue on achieving peaceful and credible elections in Lilongwe on Friday signed a peace declaration expected to help prevent violence ahead of the September 16 General Election.
Organised by the Malawi Peace and Unity Commission in partnership with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and the African Union (AU), the dialogue sought to foster preventive diplomacy, build consensus and engage stakeholders in finding solutions to potential electoral tensions.
In their declaration, participants reaffirmed their “shared responsibility to safeguard democracy and ensure stability and national unity for generations to come”.
Part of the declaration reads: “We, therefore, pledge to put Malawi first, by ensuring that forthcoming elections are free, fair, transparent, credible and peaceful.”
The participants, including chiefs, civil society leaders and youth groups, were also trained to identify and mitigate election violence triggers before, during and after polling day.
Similar declarations were also signed in the Southern and Northern regions.
Speaking on the sidelines of the dialogue at the Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe, Comesa’s head of governance, peace and security, Oita Etyang, noted that elections in the region are often “emotive” and can spark violence when expectations are unmet.
“These triggers can incite people to act on pent-up tensions that have built up over the years,” he said. “It is not the elections that incite the violence, but the emotions that build up even before the election cycle that do that.”
Etyang added that a pre-election study conducted by Comesa identified regionalised politics—where parties are barred from campaigning in certain areas—and unmet voter expectations as the two biggest triggers of electoral conflict in Malawi.
He said Comesa is working with the National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Public Trust, which will coordinate a national Election Situation Room at Sunbird Capital in Lilongwe on polling day.
The hub will collate real-time reports from observers, community leaders and civil society groups and relay them to the Malawi Electoral Commission, the police and other authorities for swift response.
“So, we will be strengthening the early warning system for elections, and through this system we will be able to gather information,” Etyang said. “This information will be shared with relevant government agencies so that they are able to respond.”
Nice situation room manager Peter Maluwa said the workshops strengthened his capacity to lead conflict monitoring during the election.
“On polling day, we will display peace messages in our situation room and use dialogue to resolve most reported incidents,” he said.
Meanwhile, government has welcomed the AU–Comesa initiative.
Speaking at the launch of the pre-election programme last week, Secretary for Foreign Affairs Mwayiwawo Polepole said the peace pledges reinforce Malawi’s tradition of non-violence during elections.
A joint AU–Comesa observer mission, led by eminent persons, including former Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, will arrive in Malawi on September 7 to monitor the pre-election environment, polling day and the post-election period.
