Malawi 2019 elections: Who is in charge of the circus?

“Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat? — Genesis 3:11-12

Events in the United States (US) and Malawi appear to be replayed from the same jukebox. In the US, impeachment trials are underway where sitting President Donald Trump could be impeached for alleged bribery.

In Malawi, the Constitutional Court is hearing startling evidence in the elections case. All these make many people wonder who is orchestrating these circuses?

Who’s in charge? In both circuses, while one side is presenting the case for removal of the president, the defenders are either calling it a witch hunt or side-stepping issues altogether.

Whatever the outcome of both, the puppeteer must be laughing his or her guts out. Or maybe its God doing another kicking ‘em-out-of-the-garden stunt.

In the Bible, Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai and descended with the 10 Commandments, the set of laws that have guided mankind since then.

He comes down after spending quality time with deity and finds his brother Aaron and Israel nation in the valley dancing to a golden calf.

If a court case were to take place, the scene would be comical as Aaron tries to wiggle out of the compromising predicament in which he was found and Moses had witnessed.

This biblical story is recounted to highlight the near hilarity taking place in the Malawi Constitutional Court where Malawi Congress Party information technology (IT) expert Daud Suleman has been peeling the Malawi 2019 Election rigging onion.

 There are 22 consideration points Suleman shows the court.

At one point to underscore his findings, Suleman asks MEC director of IT Muhabi Chisi to log into the MEC system.

Suleman told the court that MEC stopped announcement of results at 75 percent. The total centres were 5 002, meaning that at 75 percent, MEC had processed 3 766 centres as explained by Suleiman. He said of 5 002, only 3 788 centres counted, leaving 1 236 (25 percent) uncounted.

More than these, he said there were 403 unauthorised users that used the MEC system, or that a ghost user processed the results of almost 4 000 polling centres.

In regard to tally sheets, he said  4 846 centres were processed by a ghost user.

There is the point that one MEC officer could enter results in three or four different constituencies, which are geographically far from each other at the same second, which he said is humanly impossible. In some situations, he said it could be from constituencies in different regions.

There is then the matter of after tally sheets were signed, MEC started using Tipp-Ex on the signed tally sheets in the absence of the monitors and used the Tipp-xed tally sheets to send results to MEC main tally centre.

Evidence has been presented that monitors were denied the opportunity to sign tally sheets as required and that instead MEC presiding officers signed in some cases.

Election observers, namely Malawi Electoral Support Network, National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust and Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace signed tally sheets which is against the law and sidelined monitors.

In conclusion, what MEC categorised as errors, thereby intimating they should be ignored, Suleman shows that these errors have one common denominator.

The errors “follow a systematic pattern that proves they are not errors but a premeditated grand rigging plan”.

The question still arises in this alleged elections fraud. Who is in charge of the circus?

Lastly, did this apparently never-done-this-before class adequately rehearse and really understand all the components of the circus?