March 6 2025
Greetings from the Munda wa Chitedze Farm where I relocated from the hustle and bustle of your city. Everything is peaceful here, yes only peace reigns supreme here.
Dear Diary, I don’t know why these days I am not getting far from the calculator! And, it appears it is not only me. The villagers around the farm are more into using the calculators on their Mose wa Lero basic phones. Everyone is busy calculating: Maize was K5 000 a pail last week and today it is K8 000. Can you blame the calculators?
The way things are going, Malawi will need to import more abacuses because our children need to learn more maths.
Dear Diary, the question of who is monitoring the September 16 General Election is very valid. Are their checks on how this election is being run without any outside interference?
At the Munda wa Chitedze Farm, we know that there are many players in the run up to the elections who are providing checks and balances on the electoral process going on. The major player, though, is the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), where the onus to run a truly free and fair election rests.
For that matter, there are provisions for local and international observers who will monitor the electoral process.
In my view, most of the observers concentrate on monitoring the elections in the period towards the elections. You see, the registration exercise has this year been a total departure from previous polls. Not only did we have the pilot phase, but we had the exercise in phases, followed by a supplementary exercise to iron out emanating issues.
MEC maintained that the law emphasises that the registration be conducted within 14 days. Well and good, but did we sit down as a nation to agree why those 14 days were supposed to be carried out in phases?
For as long as I can remember, the transfer of registered voters were among the last events in the calendar. As we watch the sun setting at the farm today, the transfers are in their second phase. You see, the elections are in September, which means a lot will have happened for people to change their locations. Who is monitoring the rationale behind having the transfers soon after the registration, with more months between now and the polling day?
Much as Section 8 (2) of the Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections act provides for eligible voters to transfer to another centre, it does not outline when the transfers can be made. Dear Diary, there is so much to happen between March and September that would necessitate our being elsewhere than the farm.
This is not a joke. Being as progressive as we are with chitedze farming, in September we may find ourselves at the Mzuzu University’s Centre of Neglected and Underutilised Biodiversity to present a paper on why chitedze should be considered as the next biggest cash crop in Malawi. Come September 16, is MEC telling us we have to trek from Mzuzu to the polling centre near the farm and vote and go back to Mzuzu?
A lot of issues go past us at the farm, so maybe all the players agreed to this arrangement on transfers.
But then, you see, it appears no one has really cared about monitoring the elections since 2019. You see, after that poll, there was a redemarcation exercise that happened. The number of members of Parliament rose from 193 to 229, while the number of ward councillors rose from 462 to 509.
But did any local or international observers monitor the distribution? The calculations at the Munda wa Chitedze Farms. The North now has 38 constituencies, five more from the previous election. The Centre now has 93 constituencies, with 26 more.
The South now has 98 constituencies, 10 more from the previous elections.
Our calculations show that Lilongwe City has seven more constituencies, Mzuzu City now has three more constituencies while Zomba City was also divided into two constituencies. Blantyre City used to have eight constituencies, but now there are 10 constituencies.
You see, the calculators are making noise on the farm because we hear population is one of the major factors for increasing the number of constituencies. Get this clear, with its ever-growing population, Blantyre City has two more constituencies, while Dowa has three more constituencies! Kasungu, Dedza and Mzimba, to mention a few, have two more constituencies.
Here at the farm, whatever you do with these figures is up to you. But it is our clear observation that Malawi politics being about regions, it is clear and very evident that some political strongholds will certainly have an advantage of more MPs.
Is anyone monitoring the electoral process?
