Attorney General (AG) Frank Mbeta has asked Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) to immediately relocate from Lilongwe to Blantyre in line with President Peter Mutharika’s October 2025 Executive order.
The sentiments from the government’s chief legal adviser come in the wake of a judgement by High Court of Malawi Civil Division Judge Kenyatta Nyirenda dismissing three applicants who sought to put aside implementation of the directive and commence judicial review of the decision.
In an interview on Monday evening after Nyirenda’s ruling, Mbeta said the Executive order to relocate remains in force and MEC has to move.
He said: “The court has refused to grant an injunction against MEC relocation. The Executive order to relocate remains in force. And they should relocate immediately because they are out of time.
“The ruling resets the tone of the law that busy bodies will not be tolerated to litigate in our courts on matters which do not have any bearing on their personal rights or interests.”
In February this year, High Court Judge Simeon Mdeza also dismissed the electoral body’s application for judicial review on grounds that it was made outside the prescribed time, January 27 2026, when the order was made on October 10 2025.
MEC in April said it would maintain its headquarters in Lilongwe pending a conclusive determination of constitutional issues surrounding the relocation order.
When contacted yesterday on progress of the said legal process and following remarks from the AG, MEC director of media and public relations Sangwani Mwafulirwa said “the commission will speak at an appropriate time on the matter”.
Meanwhile, Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation executive director Michael Kaiyatsa has said the prolonged uncertainty around MEC’s relocation creates unnecessary anxiety among electoral stakeholders and risks shifting attention away from its core constitutional mandate of preparing for and managing credible elections.
Governance pundit Undule Mwakasungula said the matter could better be resolved through a roundtable engagement.
In the October 10 2025 Order, Mutharika directed that MEC, Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra), and Malawi Housing Corporation (MHC) headquarters should return to Blantyre while Malawi Prisons Service headquarters should return to Zomba within three months.
To justify the reversal of decisions implemented by his predecessor Lazarus Chakwera, Mutharika said there was need to strategically realign and reallocate certain government institutions to promote administrative balance and efficiency.
MEC moved its head offices from Blantyre to Lilongwe in June 2023 while Malawi Prisons relocated its headquarters from Zomba in January 2024 followed by Macra in March 2024 alongside MHC.
The major relocation of all head offices for the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) which were housed in Blantyre to Capital Hill in Lilongwe was initiated by former president Bingu wa Mutharika in 2006 to ease coordination and purportedly cut costs of travel of MDA officials to and from parent ministries in Lilongwe.
There were also plans to relocate head offices of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services and the Judiciary from Blantyre to Lilongwe.
