MEC rebuffs PP on Karonga Central rerun

The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has turned down People’s Party’s (PP) request to consider a rerun of parliamentary elections for Karonga Central Constituency.

PP candidate for the constituency Dr. Cornelius Mwalwanda and the party’s 27 monitors have been alleging that there were irregularities in the elections, hence demanding a rerun.

But MEC chief elections officer Willie Kalonga yesterday said the petition from PP calling for a rerun was outside the period given to make electoral complaints.

He said if the monitors wanted the matter to be handled by MEC, they should have petitioned the electoral body immediately after the elections were done or after they noted the problems.

“If they noted the problems, they would have complained to MEC or the High Court within seven days, but they never did that. We had 18 cases and two were dismissed. The Karonga Central one was not there,” said Kalonga.

In an interview, Mwenefumbo said the petition is a clear frustration on the part of Mwalwanda.

He, therefore, asked Mwalwanda to accept defeat and move on with life, wondering why out of the five people who contested it was only the PP candidate demanding a rerun.