Malawi’s election boss resigns amid controversies

Chairperson of Malawi’s electoral body resigned her position in what is the latest twist of an upcoming election rerun in the southern African country.

Jane Ansah’s Malawi Electoral Commission, MEC; suffered credibility crisis earlier this year when a court annulled May 2019 elections that won incumbent Peter Mutharika re-election.

The Constitutional Court ruled that opposition petitioners had proven that there were widespread irregularities in the poll. Her resignation further adds to “the uncertainty in the run up to fresh presidential elections whose date is not clear at the moment,” the privately-owned Nation newspaper said.

She had been the subject of dogged protests by a civil society group, the Human Rights Defenders Coalition that held protests between July 2019 and January 2020 calling for Ansah and other MEC commissioners to resign.

Malawi currently has to sort out the processing of ballots and setting of an election date all within 42 days to the final countdown set by the court to hold fresh polls. The court had ordered that the rerun be held in 150 days of their ruling back in February.

A parliamentary committee had asked the president to fire Ansah and the MEC top brass but Mutharika refused with the reason that he had not seen any grave breach on their parts.

The incumbent went to the Supreme Court to challenge the annulment of the his re-election but was unsuccessful. His veep Saulos Chilima who he unconstitutionally sacked is now running mate to main opposition candidate Lazarus Chakwera.