Court orders Liliongwe election rerun to go ahead

The High Court in Lilongwe has ordered that Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) should go ahead to conduct a rerun of the Lilongwe City South East election where a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Bentry Namasasu was declared a winner.

If the order had been granted, Namasasu would have continued to act as MP pending the appeal on the rerun.

Malawi Congress Party (MCP) candidate Ulemu Msungama challenged the results of the May 20 Tripartite Elections parliamentary race in the constituency on the basis that his votes were counted as the DPP candidate’s.

Namasasu applied to court not to implement the court order for a rerun pending an appeal, but judge Esme Chombo has quashed it on the grounds that he was doing it through the back door.

Chombo said prior to the October 28 2014 order for the rerun in Lilongwe City South East Constituency, she asked all the parties to the case to make written submissions, but Namasasu did not for reasons he did not tell the court.

But this time, Namasasu’s lawyer, Chancy Gondwe, made an “extensive and elaborate” affidavit in support of the application, which did not seem to please Chombo.

“It is trite law that he who seeks equity must come with clean hands. The interested party has not come to the law with clean hands. I am afraid I must deny the application for stay,” Chombo said.

In his application for stay of execution, Namasasu’s lawyer argued that the court made a ruling without properly quarantining evidence before it.

“The assessments of the fact by the court were faulty as the court only relied on results from a single polling station of Chilinde,” Gondwe argued.

But Chombo said the argument was misguided because the court considered this and made its decision based on submissions from MEC and Msungama.

“At the hearing, there was no submission to go in his favour. Surely, you cannot rely on another party’s submission. It appears to me the present application is a back-door attempt to put on file the submissions that he failed to make at the appropriate time,” Chombo said.

Reacting to the ruling, Msungama said he was happy the court continues to vindicate him and he was more than ready for the rerun.

Gondwe, who is representing Namasasu, has appealed to the Supreme Court against Chombo’s order.