Majority trust MEC—Afrobarometer

An Afrobarometer poll has found that a majority of Malawians have confidence in the capabilities and neutrality of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) although a significant minority disagrees.

The poll—released Friday evening—was conducted from March 23 to April 7 2014 to gauge public attitudes on democracy and governance in Malawi, including who voters want to elect.

According to the poll, 55 percent of Malawians think MEC is ‘very well prepared’ for the upcoming election; 20 percent think it is ‘at least somewhat prepared’ and just 16 percent think it is ‘not at all’ or ‘not very well’ prepared.

But with the voters’ roll mess in which several names missed or had wrong details, reports of a vehicle crisis for managing the elections and the controversy over the sourcing of some election- related equipment from Zimbabwe, some observers such as Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI) executive director Rafik Hajat said yesterday the score on preparedness is overly generous.

On how much Malawians trust MEC, 57 percent of the representatives talked to said they trust the commission ‘somewhat’ or ‘a lot’ in 2014, down from 64 percent in 2012; whereas 38 percent said they trust the body ‘not at all’ or ‘just a little’.

Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) believe the commission “performs its duties as a neutral body guided only by law”, an increase from 56 percent of Malawians who said the same about MEC in 2012.

However, one person in three (32 percent) in 2014 were concerned that “MEC makes decisions that favour particular people, parties or interests”.

The poll also found that fewer than half of Malawians (46 percent) expect the 2014 elections to be either ‘completely free and fair’ or ‘free and fair, but with minor problems’, whereas more than one in three (36 percent) expect the elections to be seriously flawed.

By comparison, when asked (also in 2014) about the quality of the last national election in 2009, 70 percent reported that those elections were mostly or completely free and fair.

“While prospective and retrospective evaluations may not be completely comparable, this difference suggests that Malawians are not expecting the upcoming election to meet the same standard of quality as the 2009 contest,” the report explained.

Commenting on MEC’s preparedness results, Hajat said the numbers would drop considerably if the survey were to be conducted today.

“The survey was conducted before people realised that their names will be missing on the voters’ roll. It is a foregone conclusion that the preparations were not impressive, but there is nothing we can do,” he said.

Hajat added: “These are lessons learnt. After elections, there is need to restructure the whole MEC starting from the commission to the secretariat.”

Executive director of National Elections Systems Trust Unandi Banda said the current commission has tried to improve confidence levels.

“The way they have handled the issue of public broadcasting has increased the confidence levels in the electoral body, but they have to work hard to reduce the figures of those who think it is not prepared,” he said.

MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa said given that the survey was conducted some months ago when the preparations for the May 20 elections had already started, the confidence levels must be even higher now.

“The increase in the number of people having confidence in the commission is based on their assessment of how the commission has conducted itself by that time. By now the reflections definitely have gone up considering that the commission has demonstrated high level diligence in its operations to have credible elections. If the survey could be conducted now, the figure will be much higher,” he said.

Mwafulirwa added that the commission will do everything possible to be impartial, professional and independent body.

“For those who think that the commission favours some political parties, they should know that MEC has opened up and has been engaging all stakeholders according to their concerns. We have the National Elections Consultative Forum where all stakeholders are invited to be consulted on,” he said.