We’re watching—EU
Europeans expect a clean voting process in Tuesday’s tripartite election, saying anything short will erode the confidence Malawi gained in the eyes of the international community.
Silvia de Félix, media analyst and public outreach officer for the European Union Election Observer Mission (EU EOM), laid out the expectation in an exclusive interview with Nation on Sunday this week.
“The EU EOM is here to assess the credibility and transparency of the process,” said De Felix in a written response.
She added: “The way in which these elections unfold is important for the confidence of Malawians and the international community in the democratic functioning of the country.”
Voting in what is expected to be a tightly contested first ever tripartite election gets underway in the next 48 hours and expectations are high.
The EU, one of the world’s most powerful economic blocs, said transparency and credibility in the poll will be a key benchmark in how the international community deals with Malawi going forward.
“It is important that voters are aware of their political rights and that they freely choose to participate in the process and to select who will represent them in government,” explained de Felix.
She said the EU election observer mission expects transparency measures at all levels of the electoral administration, including integrity and reliability of the election results.
De Felix said other factors the Europeans will be assessing include the need for improved transparency in campaign funding, equal access to State resources by contestants such as the public media and separation between the use of State resources for public office and campaigning.
She said these measures are the substantive recommendations that the EU EOM made after the 2009 elections in which the late Bingu wa Mutharika won with a landslide.
The poll observer noted that distribution of electoral materials is one of the most challenging phases of the entire electoral process and that the EU would be on point to see how the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) handles this.
“The EU EOM is and will be observing all these operations and will issue a substantiated assessment after Election Day,” she said, hinting on what will be in the mission’s final report:
“The EU EOM will offer recommendations for improving the integrity and effectiveness of future electoral processes and the wider process of democratisation. Some recommendations have already been identified by the mission. Nevertheless, these have to be thoroughly analysed and discussed in the weeks to come.”
Acknowledging some recent amendments to Malawi’s legislation for the conduct of tripartite elections, de Felix, however, said “there are still some shortcomings that the EU EOM will identify in its preliminary findings on May 22.”
Commenting on the conduct of the campaigns that officially closed at 6 o’clock this morning and behaviour of electoral players, de Felix said:
“The 2014 elections have provided for an open political space with the participation of a considerable number of candidates for the three elections, making these elections very competitive. The final test regarding the performance and democratic behaviour of political parties will take place after Election Day and announcement of results.”
She added that the EU EOM will remain in the country after the Tuesday poll in the country until June 15 to assess the process during its final stage and to follow on the handling of any complaints and appeals that may arise from political parties.
Meanwhile, the EU mission has deployed an additional 40 short-term observers to all districts of Malawi.
Deputy chief observer Tania Marques said at the deployment yesterday that the additional battery of observers has joined the mission to observe voting, counting and tabulation of the results.
