Expert pushes for poll probe

A democratic governance expert has pleaded with the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and the nation at large to investigate to its logical conclusions of allegations of fraud and corruption that dented the May 20 Tripartite Elections results.
Speaking in his personal capacity, Kizito Tenthani—who is Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD) executive director—said in an interview on Friday that what he saw during the tallying of the election results should move authorities to make a follow-up and establish what really happened.
“I do appreciate that in an exercise such as elections, there are bound to be some errors of calculations, but from what I saw, I am at pains to believe that some of the mistakes that I saw are natural or innocent errors.

 
“I had an opportunity to see some of the records in question and I can say without fear of contradiction that what I saw was really disappointing. Even the commission, through its chairperson [Maxon Mbendera] admitted that some of the records that were received from the field left a lot to be desired,” he said.
Tenthani, however, said whether the irregularities amounted to rigging depends on where one is standing on the matter.
“But in my view, I guess this is what prompted the chair of MEC to say that if our teachers could indeed make such mistakes, then as a nation we are in serious problems.
“It is commendable that our political leaders have decided to move on for the sake of our country, but I feel it will be a great injustice to ourselves if we do not pursue and get to the bottom of what really happened so that we should avoid a repeat of the mess that was created,” he said.

 
Tenthani added that he would not speculate the origin of these irregularities and dismissed the assertion that irregularities would not have impacted on the outcome of the elections.
On its part, the Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn), while admitting that there were irregularities, ruled out any assertion of rigging.
Mesn public and media relations manager Deogratias Mmana, in an e-mail response on Friday, said from the data they received from their observers nationwide, there was no element of rigging.
“MEC itself admitted that there were some irregularities, but such irregularities did not amount to rigging. Anybody with evidence on rigging should take it up with relevant institutions for redress.
“The irregularities came forth because of poor preparations by the MEC for the elections. This was evidenced by the voters’ roll, which had lots of problems even up to the polling period; late delivery of election materials, inadequate vehicles and MEC confessed that some of its staff that it hired let them down,” he said.

 
Nation on Sunday’s nationwide analysis of Malawi Congress Party (MCP), People’s Party (PP) and UDF dossiers of electoral complaints shows that returning officers—who were mostly head teachers—were either grossly inefficient or heavily compromised.
Glaring arithmetical errors and outright disregard of Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) guidelines, among other lapses, by returning officers, display a mess that gives strong credence to claims by MCP, UDF, PP and other stakeholders that the legitimacy of the electoral outcome maybe flawed. In some cases, one could find tallies such as 30+40=800, which were blatantly inaccurate.
The lapses and discrepancies in the result sheets from most districts had arithmetical errors that were being corrected at the centres without the authorisation of party monitors who signed the original result sheets.
The dossier also shows that MEC data entry clerks at the National Tally Centre in Blantyre may also have been complacent, if not complicit, if their computation errors are anything to go by.

 
Examples include results from Mzimba South West Constituency where President Peter Mutharika had scored 7 329 votes, yet the tally sheet results after data entry at the main tally centre in Blantyre indicated that Mutharika scored 7 669, which was 340 votes more than the original sheet.
In Nkhotakota North Constituency, main presidential candidates had their results revised down wards at the MEC main tally centre.
On the polling centre tally sheet in Nkhotakota, Mutharika received 11 788 votes, but the main tally centre sheet indicated 1 1618, losing 170 votes. Chakwera received 5 514 votes at the polling centre, which was changed to 5 446, losing 68 votes while President Joyce Banda received 7 297, but at the MEC tally centre the number was reduced by 380 votes at 6 917.
“The change of figures by data entry clerks [at MEC main tally centre] was sudden. Original tally sheets from the constituency differs to what was produced through MEC print outs,” reads one inquiry form.

 
Apart from the changing of figures from polling stations and those printed at MEC main tally centre, other challenges included discrepancies between the station’s totals for candidates and the votes cast, discrepancies arising from intentional or unintentional arithmetical errors between number of votes per streams and station totals of the votes for specific candidates; polling station results sheets that do not bear MEC logo, or barcode, or polling station codes and names .
Some polling station results sheets did not bear names or signatures of the presiding officers whereas some polling station results sheets were not signed by political party monitors.
In some cases, the name and signature of the same presiding officer appeared on several polling stations’ results sheets originating from different locations while some results sheets bore figures that had been altered or tippexed out and in some cases results were altogether illegible. n