Tough ride for electoral reforms

If sentiments of some political parties and analysts on the reforms from President Peter Mutharika are anything to go by, implementation of the recommended changes is likely to be an uphill battle.

When he had an audience with officials from the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) recently, Mutharika’s scepticism, even cynicism, for the reforms, was evident.

The President, among other things, urged MEC to resist the temptation to push for changes as a response to sectoral complaints.

He said: “I would like to draw your attention to the fundamental constitutional principle that all laws enacted in this country must reflect the wishes of the   people   of   Malawi.

“Your commission must, therefore, resist the temptation of proposing reforms as a response to sectoral complaints as opposed to a real and genuine national concern.”

The hunger and calls for change to the country’s electoral system were widespread and loud in the aftermath of the May 20 2014 Tripartite Elections.

In their post-election reviews, various stakeholders, including MEC, Malawi Electoral Support Network (Mesn), National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust and Public Affairs Committee (PAC) recommended urgent change.

Voters too—frustrated by the post-2014 polls gridlock that paralysed the country over results—pushed for reforms.

Even the African Union (AU) Election Observation Mission Report for 2014 elections specifically recommended, among other things, the review of the current electoral system to ensure that the country’s President is elected by popular vote.

The mission also called for the amendment of the electoral  laws  to  further  strengthen  MEC’s powers to  monitor internal party democracy saying; “for instance, the post-election standoff over the results would perhaps have been avoided if a second round of the vote would have been necessitated under a 50%+1 electoral system.”

It was on the basis of all these sentiments that the National Election Task Force said it convened—following rounds of consultations with the public through various stakeholders—to collect, integrate and analysed information from the grass roots under the guidance of consultative and expert groups as well as through a peer review mechanism, to come up with the recommendations.

Despite the apparent consensus, some political parties—and some analysts are not surprised—appear reluctant to embrace and champion the changes.

Boniface Dulani (PhD), a political science lecturer at Chancellor College, a constituent college of the University of Malawi (Unima), observed that politically it would be a challenge to enact the new rules.

He said in an interview this week: “This is largely because the people that are supposed to champion the rule changes won under the old rules and it is not certain they would have been under the proposed new rules. But good leadership should be willing to stand up and enact the rules that are for the national good even if they might not work for them.”

Dulani observed that in past years, the Executive branch of government has exhibited a tendency to cherry-pick what they want from proposed legal reforms while leaving out parts they do not like.

“I would suspect this would be the case in the current proposals, risking watering down the final law that comes out. We should also remember that even if the laws are enacted, they are not a panacea for all our electoral problems. The proposed rules, for example, are likely to introduce new challenges,” he said.

Further, Dulani said the proposed reforms are also likely to create confusion, proportional representation (PR) which centralises power in party leaders in the selection of electoral candidates.

On whether Malawi would manage to implement the reforms in time for the 2019 general elections, Dulani said the reform proposals have been discussed in several forums for a number of years now and it was time to take them to the next level.

“There are three years between now and the next elections. This in my view is sufficient time to enact the reforms into law,” he said.

But there has been a sense of unease on the part of the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on implementation of the reforms as evidenced by the task force report on the ruling party’s position on some reforms.

The task force report indicates that out of all the parties that participated, it was only DPP that did not indicate its position on the preferred electoral system for presidential elections.

Efforts to contact DPP, Mutharika or government on their position on reforms hit a wall throughout this week.

Both DPP spokesperson Francis Kasaila and government spokesperson Jappie Mhango could not respond to the set of questions submitted to them. Mutharika’s spokesperson Gerald Viola referred the matter to Mhango who is Minister of Information, Tourism and Civic Education.

This week, United Democratic Front (UDF) backed Mutharika’s position saying his fears made sense and that his party shared the same sentiments at various stakeholders’ consultative meetings.

Said UDF spokesperson Ken Ndanga in an interview: “Our view was that we should at all cost avoid looking at just a particular election or dealing with electoral problems that are exclusive to a particular political party. The reforms are a very important aspect of our electoral process and should be prioritised.”

Ndanga—whose party is in a parliamentary working relationship with DPP—added that it was not feasible to have all the laws tabled and passed in the National Assembly due to time limitations and financial resources.

MEC too backs Mutharika, saying the commission looks at the President’s observations as the right path to take.

MEC spokesperson Sangwani Mwafulirwa said: “We look at it [the President’s observation] as goodwill and in a positive way. What the President  said  by  urging  the  ‘commission  to  resist  temptation  of proposing reforms as a response to sectoral complaints as opposed to real and genuine national concern’ is the way to go and that is how the whole process of electoral reforms has been handled.”

MEC said it was only a member of the task force that will forward its report to the Law Commission who will process them for submission to Parliament through Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

“There will have to be a  legitimisation  process at some point, whether  through  a  referendum—on  some  constitutional  issues  that are  entrenched—or  through  Parliament.  That’s not for MEC to decide.

“At the moment, the Law Commission has been engaged to produce the final  report  on  the  issues  and  also  come  up  with  draft  bills.  The  Law Commission