Malawis præsident- og parlamentsvalg i maj var frit, men ikke retfærdigt, konkluderer et hold internationale observatører, udsendt af Folkekirkens Nødhjælp, i deres endelige rapport, som organisationen nu har offentliggjort.
Ifølge rapporten var valget frit, bl.a. fordi der var ytringsfrihed og relativt få blokader af og trusler mod valgkampens aktiviteter og de stemmeberettigede.
Valget var uretfærdigt, bl.a. fordi de offentlige medier i stor grad favoriserede det regerende parti, og på grund af præsidentens og det regerende partis misbrug af statsmidler i forbindelse med valgkampen, hedder det.
I Malawi støtter Folkekirkens Nødhjælp programmer, der styrker de borgerlige og politiske rettigheder, fødevaresikkerhed (bl.a. det stærkt omtalte hønseriprojekt) og forebyggelse og behandling af hiv/aids for de fattigste af de fattige.
VK-regeringen besluttede kort efter sin tiltræden i november 2001 at indstille den statslige udviklingsbistand til landet, der er det sydlige Afrikas fattigste, og fratage malawianerne deres status som programsamarbejdspartnere for Danida.
Her er rapporten på engelsk:
This report contains the main findings and the recommendations of the DanChurchAid (DCA) team of accredited international election observers.
The DCA team included nine persons who were divided into groups of three and stationed in Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Blantyre.
The team included three DCA Board members. The observers were present in Malawi between May 10 and May 21/22. The postponement of the election complicated the work of the observers somewhat and, regrettably, prevented the team for spending much time in Malawi in the post-election period.
DanChurchAid has supported Malawi since the mid-1980s. DCAs representation in Malawi was established on February 1, 1998, in Lilongwe.
Explained briefly, DCA today conducts three programmes, which are focusing on:
Achieving civic and political rights
Improving and stabilizing food security
HIV/AIDS prevention and care
The civic and political rights in Malawi are still not accessible and understood by the majority of Malawians.
DanChurchAid therefore continuously seeks to strengthen its programme focusing on the rights to participate in the political process, and supporting our partners in their work to increase the awareness among the poor people to utilise their civic and political rights in and after the election 2004.
DCA believes that increased awareness and a strengthened civil society in Malawi will help consolidating and securing not only the democratic structures, but also create a still more open and tolerant political climate and justice for all.
The aim of DCA is to focus on the poorest of the poor, and this process is deemed necessary if the poor and marginalised people are to claim their right to a share of resources and the benefits of development in Malawi.
The role and the rights of women are of particular importance in this regard.
It is with this in mind that DCA decided to lend its support to the 2004 Malawi elections by sponsoring a team of international observers as a part of its “civic and political rights” programme.
2. FINDINGS
Voter Registration and Nominations
Malawi uses an incremental registration system where new registrants are added onto the voters roll from the previous election.
The country does not have a registration system for births, deaths and marriages, and we have noted a host of problems related to this.
Deaths are only recorded if relatives happen to report the occurrence to registering officials. There is in other words no legal demand for any updating of the system.
In case of marriage the civil status, and often address of citizen change, and also this goes unnoticed by the official registration.
We have, not without surprise, noted a registered voter whose date of birth was 1995.
The lack of updated registration systems has amplified the difficulties, which arose with the introduction of computerized voters roll since a large portion of the information was one way or other already erroneous.
The attempts to clean up to the voters roll have in many cases merely added to the confusion and it appeared that most returning officers were critical of the clean up process.
Regarding the verification process we discovered that people have found their names attached to wrong pictures, others find that the polling centres under which the registered have changed, still others found their names missing altogether in spite of the fact they can produce registration receipts.
Additionally, the voters roll should have been published more effectively, because people generally showed interest when they were aware that it existed.
In sum, the registration process was in itself generally poorly managed, e.g. the registration day changed twice, there was a lack of registration material (cameras), centres opened late, and citizens were sent away without explanation.
Because of the problems encountered with the technological dimension of the registration and the time constraints, the rules for the clean-up and selection of registrants ended up being of a rather crude nature.
Moreover, this development has amplified the problems concerning the transfer votes, which we regard as another major concern.
In Mangochi, for example, we learned that there are around 12.000 voters who have discovered their names were absent from the voters roll even though they can produce registration certificates. And the problem seems to be widespread.
The role of the media
The independent media was widely judged as having been fair in its coverage. The problem is that it only covers 30 per cent of the country compared to the 100 per cent of the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).
The print media was noted as being largely unbiased, but, having said this, it is important also to note that the largest newspaper in the country only has a circulation of approximately 15.000 copies, which means approximately 5 per cent in the urban areas.
Indeed, both the public and the private print media only cover the urban areas.
However, the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) was heavily biased in favour of the ruling party in terms of allocated broadcasting time. The media monitoring component of the commission, as others, have indicated that the ruling party has received between 92 and 97 per cent of broadcasting time.
The general public seems to be aware of this problem.
This bias is in keeping with a rather disturbing policy widely publicized by the Executive Director of the MBC, Eunice Chimpangula, wherein she stated the MBC will not publicize any news from the opposition.
The Presidents campaign activities throughout the country, for example, were broadcasted daily whilst there was little or no coverage of the presidential candidates of the opposition.
In relation to this, we noted the densely packed schedule of the now former President Muluzi, especially in the weeks leading up to the election.
The question remains whether the MBC was reprimanded for this policy by the Malawi Electoral Commission or by the MACRA.
Regardless, the conduct of the media remains deeply troubling taking into consideration that the problems with the media also existed in 1994 and 1999, and have clearly not been dealt with properly.
Officials from the MEC admitted that they have complained to the MBC. However, their complaints were largely ignored by the MBC.
The Commission has largely been seen as pushing forward its responsibility on this issue to MACRA.
In the light of this, it seems reasonable to argue that the media monitoring component by MEC is of a rather cosmetic nature since there is no follow up on its findings by the Commission.
Additionally, our findings show that the MBC has been commercialised with regards to the non-ruling political parties. These parties have to purchase broadcasting time.
Officially, political parties have to buy broadcasting time. However, sources informed us that the UDF was not forced to pay up straight away. Instead the amount was written to an “account”.
This account, according to our sources, is never settled which obviously gives the UDF an unfair advantage over rival political parties during the campaign period.
Moreover, the UDF benefited tremendously from the high level of visibility of the incumbent President.
Voter Education
There appears to have been a wide array of actors involved in the conducting voter/civiic education. These are, e.g., the Commission, political parties, churches, non-governmental organization, the media, traditional authorities, trade unions and drama groups, etc.
However, funding of the voter/civic education has been a major problem, especially for the NGOs, leaving to a large degree a major part of the exercise to the behest of political parties and government sponsored agencies.
E.g., whilst 21 NGOs were accredited only 6 succeeded in getting money to conduct civic education programmes.
The problem was that the civic education conducted by political parties was biased and it is tempting to conclude that this could have lead to the ballot being tilted towards the party with the largest outreach. This would inevitably be the ruling party.
In essence, it appears that relations between the Commission and the NGOs are troubled by mistrust.
The NGOs informed us that the accreditation of the NGOs who were to conduct civic education was delayed. They were often given only one week to prepare which complicated the mobilisation of personnel and production of education material.
As some NGOs themselves acknowledge, this led in some cases to a quality of teaching, which was below the self-imposed standards of the NGOs. Furthermore, the civic education that local authorities were exposed to did not sufficiently filter down to the constituencies below them.
On Election Day itself officials had to conduct voter education on how to vote prior to handing out the ballot papers.
Still, we have noted that “Church and Society” and “Catholic Church Justice and Peace” and perhaps in particular “National Initiative for Civic Education” (NICE) have made important contributions to the education of voters in Malawi.
It is worth mentioning that NICE works long-term and not only in the run-up to elections.
The Election Campaign
A positive outcome of the democratisation process, which began in the early 1990s is the fact that Malawi has freedom of speech, and on countless occasions this has been emphasised by the people we have spoken to.
Malawi appears to be a relatively peaceful country. In the pre-election campaign there has been only few violent incidences observed.
Political parties and independent candidates who sought permission to hold rallies were readily granted such permission on a first come first served basis.
In spite of these very positive features, the campaign of the ruling party has had many problematic aspects. There has been a misuse of state resources, which as said included the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation.
There have been several cases of manipulation of the rural voters. The UDF have handed out food parcels and money.
The ruling party in most cases did not even bother to apply for permission to hold rallies, and the ruling party was in some areas accused of disturbing other aspiring candidates rallies.
Gender
As observers we have noted that there have been very few women standing for office in the 2004 Election. The “gender desegregated” data indicates that out of a total 1.268 national candidates only 154 were women.
We are concerned that Malawi risks falling foul of SADCs Gender and Development Declaration which calls for a minimum 30 percent representation of women by 2005.
According to our information, women candidates found it difficult to be accepted by male counterparts and were accused of not being courageous enough to tackle national and regional issues in parliament.
Also, there were several cases where up to seven women were standing in only one constituency in a district. Their chances of being elected were small, yet had they instead been standing seven women in seven different constituencies, their chances of being elected would presumably have increased.
We are somewhat concerned that this has been orchestrated as a deliberately to marginalise the women candidate, but it may be a coincidence.
Security
There was a general perception throughout the country that the police was not dealing with errant behaviour of politicians in the ruling party who perhaps were disrupting legitimate campaigns by opposition parties and independent candidates.
We were informed of several cases where the police ignored the need for assistance to members of the opposition.
3. RECOMMENDATIONS
Media
Firstly, the board of MACRA should be elected by a parliamentary committee and not by a Minister for Communication. This would ideally provide the body with a larger degree of independence from any particular political actor/appointing authority.
Our focus on MACRA is premised on that fact that they actually do have powers to discipline the media, which includes powers to remove the errant medias license.
Secondly, we are also aware of the responsibility, which the Parliamentary and Presidential Election Act vests in the Commission, and of the fact that the Supreme Court has found the Commission to be in dereliction of duty on this score.
However, we believe that a budget line for litigation by the Commission would be ideal in this situation, since it would enable them a greater degree of independence, e.g., to sue errant media.
Voter Registration
There is a dire need to create a new system for the registering of births, deaths and marriages in Malawi. This would form the ideal background for data that will be useful in the creation of a national identity system.
A system such as this could become a reliable source of information and used to establish a new and better working system for the registering voters.
It is absolutely imperative that a new system for the registration of voters in Malawi be completely new, and in no way whatsoever related to the present system.
We fully acknowledge the enormousness of such a task.
Campaigns
It is highly recommended that the electoral code of conduct to be elevated into law.
This would have the potential to curb the misuse of state resources, the doling out of money to voters, and the risk of violence. It would also empower the Malawi Electoral Commission to deal with wayward politicians, which may even include disqualification.
The Malawi Electoral Commission
As events have unfolded in the 2004 Elections it has become clear that the management of the election process has serious flaws. The responsibility for the mismanagement of the process must to a large extent be placed with the MEC.
Having said this, the working of the MEC is complicated by its organisational set-up. The political appointment of its members and thus its affiliation to the ruling party and the President prevents the MEC from functioning as a fully independent and unbiased body.
Therefore there is a need to attend to the issue of the composition of the Malawi Electoral Commission.
One option is that this should comprise of persons who are non-political and who apply for the job of being commissioner. They may not be sponsored by political parties.
A major anomaly in the arrangement currently in place is that, regardless of the background of potential Commissioners, the State President still has a right to veto their nomination to the Commission.
Traditional authorities
It would be ideal if traditional authorities were not under the control of the President.
This point is being advanced in light of the fact that most of the traditional authorities that have been promoted to the position as senior chiefs have abused their powers to advance the cause of the ruling party.
We have noted cases where local chiefs have directed and even threatened people who have attended rallies of the opposition.
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS
In spite of the many problems related to the election is has been a source of great encouragement to witness that Malawis judicial system is working, and it is working independently!
The ruling of the Supreme Court, which led to the postponement of the election by 48 hours, gave a strong signal that the institutions of state are slowly, but, as it appears, surely being consolidated in Malawi.
The atmosphere on Election Day was peaceful and positive, although several polling stations opened late.
According to SADC norms and standards, the pre-election period and the elections themselves have been free in the sense that
The debate between the public and the administration has been open and there has been no threat from police or military – i.e. there has been freedom of speech there has been no, or only very few threats or physical blockades against the voters.
Despite its shortcomings the MEC put serious efforts into planning the practical dimension of the election.
At the polling stations representatives for the political parties were given full opportunity to be present and observe the polling at each station.
The newspapers, though only covering 5 per cent of the public, were critical and
informative during the campaign.
There are several reasons why the DCA team found that the elections were not fair:
The public broadcasting focused almost entirely on the ruling party
There were substantial problems with the transfer votes, among other things due to IT-problems
There was a fear of discrepancies between the result as verified at local polling station and the result released from returning officer
There has been a direct abuse of state funds, e.g. the State Presidents use of state funds in his campaign (distribution of money and food).
Members of the DCA observer team:
Theresa Chewe, Zambia
Pauline Dempers, Namibia
Martha Kumwenda, Zambia
Muzi Masuku, Swaziland
Taona Mwanyisa, Zimbabwe
Alfiado Zunguza, Mozambique
Susanne Adelhardt Jensen, DCA Board member, Denmark
Hans Christian Beck-Jensen, DCA Board member, Denmark
Anders Stubkjær, DCA Board member, Denmark (editor)
Copenhagen, June 4, 2004
