PP primary rerun exposes rigging

A primary rerun by the People’s Party (PP) in Nkhata Bay North West Constituency has exposed rigging in the primaries that took place earlier.

The party on Sunday conducted a rerun for one centre of the constituency where other aspirants protested results, arguing the difference in results was manipulated. The development was one of the many complaints presented to the party on irregularities in the primaries.

Speaking in an interview on on Monday, PP provincial chairperson (North) Reverend Christopher Ngwira said the rerun at Nkhwali Centre exposed irregularities protesting aspirants raised.

He said the aspirants were angered by one aspirant Kasolota Chiumia, scooped over 1 200 votes while his friends had single digits.

“The other aspirants felt cheated, arguing there was no way Chiumia would scoop over 1 200 votes while his friends had single digit votes.

Kasolota also lost in the other centres and his friends were surprised at the outcome at Nkhwali and they wanted a rerun.

“As a democratic party, we felt they had a valid argument and we embarked on a rerun which has confirmed that there were anomalies,” said Ngwira.

In the rerun, Chiumia’s votes dropped from over 1 200 to 700 while for his strong contender Dickens Tchuwa increased from a single digit to 124, a development that convinced the party of irregularities in the earlier primaries.

Ngwira said following the rerun, Tchuwa has been declared winner for the primaries.

“The difference in the earlier primaries and the rerun showed something was wrong. Kasolota earlier got 1 900 votes, but after the rerun, his votes dropped drastically and it happened that Tchuwa had more votes than him. Tchuwa won in the other centres and it was just in Nkhwali where he lost and the margin earlier was just too much,” said Ngwira.