When former Blantyre City Mayor Noel Chalamanda lost to his deputy Wild Ndipo back in 2017, residents of the city felt displeased.
Many felt there was no one better than the private practice lawyer capable of being the ceremonial leader of the country’s commercial capital and his exit triggered a debate on how mayors should be elected.
Under the current Local Government Act, mayors are voted by councillors, who predominantly belong to different political parties.
Members of Parliament (MPs), whose jurisdictions fall within city and municipal councils, are non-voting members of the local government’s decision-making body.
This means mayors are largely elected along political lines while residents do not have a say or power to hold them accountable.
Now, dreams of city and municipal residents voting for mayors seems to have faded as the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has rejected a proposal to allow the metropolitan residents directly vote for their preferred individuals.
The ministry’s spokesperson Chimwemwe Njoloma says the principal concern raised during consultations was that direct election of mayors is generally associated with an Executive mayoral system, which differs from institutional and governance arrangements under the existing local government system.
“Consequently, introducing direct mayoral elections would require careful consideration of their implications for the structure, functions and accountability arrangements of local authorities,” says Njoloma.
“It would also necessitate further stakeholder consultations and a comparative assessment of experiences from other jurisdictions to inform an appropriate policy position.”
Njoloma says introduction of direct mayoral elections would even have implications beyond the Local Government Act.
In particular, she says consequential amendments to the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections Act would need to be considered to provide an appropriate legal framework for the conduct of such elections.
This, according to Njoloma, would require close consultation and coordination with the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) and other relevant institutions to ensure that any proposed reforms are legally sound, institutionally appropriate and consistent with Malawi’s electoral framework.
“However, it remains a matter that may be considered further, subject to additional consultations and a comprehensive assessment of its legal, institutional and governance implications,” she says.
Malawi has four city councils and three municipal councils which are led by mayors.
The city councils include Blantyre, Zomba, Lilongwe and Mzuzu while the municipal councils are Luchenza, Mangochi and Kasungu.
The roles of mayor and deputy mayor are established under Section 9 of the Local Government Act. Their tenure, including that of council chairpersons and deputy council chairpersons, is stipulated under Section 7 (4) of the Local Government Act.
“The chairman and vice-chairman shall each serve in their respective capacities for a period of one year, unless sooner replaced, and shall be eligible to be re-elected for one additional term,” reads part of the section.
“But so, however, that in the case of a city or a municipal council, the council and vice-chairman shall serve for a period of two and a half years, unless replaced and shall be eligible to be re-elected for one additional term.”
Currently, metropolitan residents in only a handful of African countries directly vote for mayors. These include Zambia, Senegal, Madagascar and Kenya.
However, other African countries like Mozambique and Zimbabwe, who pioneered direct mayoral elections in 1995 and 1998, respectively, later amended their laws to introduce an indirect mayoral voting system.
Political scientist Ernest Thindwa, whose research interests extend to electoral systems, says that direct mayoral elections would significantly enhance legitimacy to the mayoral office as city and municipality residents would identify with the mayor.
“To the extent that the mayor would be directly elected, the mayoral office is likely to be more accountable and responsive to city and municipality residents than to the council or party that sponsored them as is currently the case,” he says.
“It would also incentivise capable citizens without party leanings to compete for the office, thereby increasing the pool of talent from which city and municipality residents can choose.”
Thindwa says when revisiting the legal framework to facilitate direct election of Mayors, Malawi can learn from other jurisdictions, but stresses the country should not be constrained or compelled to transplant what obtains elsewhere into the local setting.
He adds: “We should be innovative and bold enough to fashion something that responds to Malawi’s unique needs and manage strategic interests from diverse actors which may interfere with the national agenda for enhanced governance at local level.”
Thindwa says that in any electoral reform, the central question requiring addressing relates to what governance values should be promoted, adding that it is fundamentally vital for the promotion of one or a set of governance values.
From that perspective, Thindwa says a trade-off on governance values is inevitable to induce a strategic choice central in pursuit of effective governance.
Mayors were re-introduced following the resumption of councillors in the first ever 2014 Tripartite Elections, which was also the fifth general election for Malawi since attainment of plural politics.
Their re-introduction was meant to fill a nine-year vacuum following the dissolution of local councils in 2005, and as part of restoration of local development and public participation, promotion of inclusivity and gender representation, and for Malawi to comprehensively adhere to the decentralisation framework.
