The Office of the Registrar of Political Parties says it received 162 complaints relating to handouts during the September 16 General Election campaign period, including 36 filed after the close of the 60-day campaign.
In an interview yesterday, registrar Kizito Tenthani said 20 of the 36 cases filed after the campaign involved individuals or political parties which were already under scrutiny regarding previous complaints. In that regard, he said the cases were merged.
He said: “Unlike most of the cases that we received before the close of the campaign, a good number of these new cases are providing us with a bit more substance to allow us to investigate further. We are also getting people who are willing to stand as witnesses.”
Tenthani said 31 out of the 36 fresh complaints are against male candidates. A breakdown by region shows that the Southern Region, with 21 cases, was the highest followed by the Central Region with eight and Northern Region with seven.
In terms of political affiliation of accused candidates, independents dominate with 13 cases followed by Malawi Congress Party with 11, Democratic Progressive Party with eight and one each against UTM Party, United Democratic Front and Alliance for Democracy.
The registrar said most complaints involve allegations of monetary enticements, while some involve providing free maize milling for villagers and throwing parties. There were also cases of candidates campaigning outside the official campaign period.
After investigations, the registrar is expected to hand over the cases to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
In a related development, the Judiciary has said it has handled four election-related cases since polling day on September 16.
Judiciary spokesperson Ruth Mputeni said in an interview that all four cases filed after voting day have been disposed of.
She said overall the Judiciary has received 49 cases since February this year, out of which 40 have been concluded and nine are pending completion.
Commenting on the developments yesterday, Catholic University of Malawi dean of law James Kaphale said several High Court rulings have indicated that petitions to stay the determination of the election results cannot be filed before official results are announced.
Section 41 (1) of the Political Parties Act prohibits any candidate, political party or person contesting in an election from issuing handouts while Section 41 (3) of the Act states that a person who contravenes sub-section 1 be liable to a fine of K10 million and imprisonment for five years
