MEC meets presidential candidates Mutharika, Joyce Banda: Next are Chakwera and Chilima
The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) on Tuesday embarked on a process of meeting and engaging political party leaders ahead of next year’s elections and the process started with meeting President Peter Mutharika at State House in Lilongwe and former President and leader of the People’s Party, Joyce Banda at her Area 43 residence.
Chief Elections Officer Sam Alfandika confirmed the development at Linde Motel at Mponela in Dowa on Wednesday during the national faith leaders conference on governance consolidation and women in politics organised by Act Alliance.
According to Alfandika, the commission is expected to also meet leader of opposition and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) presudent Lazarus Chakwera before meeting Vice-President Saulosi Chilima, who is also leader of the new political block in the county, UTM.
He also said the commision will also meet leaders of all political parties in the country in a quest to lobby for abrogation of hate speech as a way of trying to achieve equitable, fair, transparent and accessible elections.
“We are engaging all political party leaders, we want them to promote unity in the country by encouraging political tolerance,” Alfandika said.
Political violence looks eminent ahead of the fourthcoming elections if recent cases are anything to go by and Alfandika said it is sad that most violent acts are perpetrated by political leaders.
“We are asking you religious leaders to avoid being partisan and try as much as possible to be neutral,” he said.
In his key note speech, general secretary for Malawi Council of Churches Bishop Gilford Matonga stressed the need for the free and fair elections.
Matonga said women can manage to win different positions during the forthcoming general elections and they should be given opportunities on political positions.
He urged women to have self confidence and be able to speak.
In her remarks, Reverend Agnes Nyirenda of Livingstonia Synod’s Area 23 Church, commended the organizing coommittee of this year’s women in politics conference saying it will help to drum up support for women candidates.
She said although the meeting is long overdue, it still is important. She said women are also being sidelined even in churches.
Follow and Subscribe Nyasa TV :
Why meeting them separately????……..hmmmmmmmm MEC should have met with them at the same time
And i feel if it was necessary to meet these political leaders , why not meet them in public unlike in private as it is the case? They could have organised a public meeting for all these leaders.
I disagree with this idea of meeting all political leaders because all these MEC officials belong to DPP, therefore let them conduct this meeting with peter mutharika, full stop
Bishop Matonga has a point about women aspiring for politics, and this is an urgent and opportune time to raise the issue of broader representation. Now, let’ get a little bit radical thought, shall we? Abale inu, we should start seriously thinking towards gender equity for a fairer world of our politics of representation. For 2024. My personal view: under the current environment where both genders have to fight on an equal footing, like in the advanced political democracies we envy so much, it could take us ten if not more generations to get to the much needed equity or… Read more »
Acts of crooks…………….!! How can we be sure of what you shared with the political party presidents when the meetings were done in-camera! Worse still what do we take of DPP officials namely: Alufandika, Ansah, Mathanga, Nkosi, Moffat Banda, Mtafu etc disguised as MEC officials meeting DPP president [their own party president] discussing how best to go about 2019 elections? What were they discussing about 2019 elections as DPP officials? Can that be for general good or they were there to thank their master for giving them a good job [MEC Commissioner]. Malawians do we believe MEC/DPP officials can have… Read more »
Agree with kamdidi..UTM doesn’t have a presidential candidate yet.
This is nice. Prevention is better than cure. We don’t want any blood shed during pre/post election 2019. After all, we are all Malawians and this is only our home. We need to love and be patriotic to this country. Make Malawi a safe place to live
The heading is talking about MECmeeting presidential candidates and the content is talking about MEC meeting political party leaders. Chilima is an interim UTM party leader and not presidential candidate as UTM is yet to hold its first ever convention where all NEC positions including that of the leader and presidential candidate will be elected. MEC should know that better, otherwise meeting Chilima as a presidential candidate might open a cane of questions as it would mean the electoral body has endorsed him before the convention…and that would be a disaster on the conduct of MEC! Just my layman’s views… Read more »
It’s obvious that he’s going to be presidential candidate for PP..why cooking a story without anything to say
Ha ha ha no mention of UDF. This party is now considered a small party. Pathetic and to hell with a Chair and his son Atupele. They have downgraded the party for the family interest.
I personally do not trust this composition of MEC Commissioners, let alone this MEC CEO. Alfandika.
I thought every party has got his own representative as a commissioner..what are you talking about?