Mesn present by-election assessment report
The Malawi Electoral Support Network (MESN) last week Friday handed over the assessment report of the by-elections that took place earlier this month.
The presentation ceremony took place at a function held at Victoria Hotel in Blantyre.
The main objective of the report was to assess the Malawi Electoral Commission’s (MEC) commitment in implementing prioritized and agreed upon non-legislative electoral reforms related to delivery of elections day materials and management of the elections results.
The report comes after a communique that was signed by MEC, Mesn and Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CDM) which represented political parties in Parliament.
Mesn board chairperson Steven Duwa said the report was looking at how far MEC has implemented the recommendation agreed in the communique.
He said: “What we have noted through our monitors is that most of the things we agreed upon before the by-elections were fulfilled among them are the delivery of election materials on good time and adequate.”
He also commended MEC for the good job on transmission and recording of the results.
“There is a concern that when recording, they only use figures and that was a subject to manipulation. Through our discussion, we agreed going forward the results should be recorded in figures and words,” he said.
In her remarks, MEC chairperson Dr Jane Ansah said by-elections were successful because the agreed administrative reforms were implemented, adding that there is a need for all political parties play a critical role to make sure all elections are free and fair.
“Issues about election are for the people and MEC is like a referee. We cannot make a critical process free and fair but we work with political parties and other stakeholders to train monitors to oversee the actual polling,” she said.
CMD’s Ulemu Chilapondwa stressed that there is a need to improve all non-legislative reforms.
“The are some non-legislative reforms that were proposed that they should be used in the forthcoming election. Our stand is we should try as much as possible to learn from what happened in November 1 by-elections and improve on that one,” Chilapondwa said.
During the by-election, Mesn deploy monitors to 25 polling station out of 60 and there is a general trend that MEC has fulfilled was implemented.
