Musings on Malawi elections: Ambuje Tom Likambale

In an evening news conference Monday, May 26th., Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chair Maxon Mbendera assures that a recount will be done in the 58 poling stations which registered more than a 100% filled ballots.

I think he needed to go further. Clearly his team will be recounting the same more-than-100%-ballots. They can’t, and wont, leave out some and only count others.

Beyond recounting, therefore, it is important to dig into what happened that resulted in more votes being cast than the number of registered voters. The MEC Chair should submit such information to law enforcement authorities and these should throw the book at the miscreants.

Someone, somewhere, has a lot of explaining to do and the electoral commission chair has so far not convinced me that he is the guy to address these issues satisfactorily.

He does not seem to be angry enough about what happened under his watch, for one thing. In this case we need his anger to fuel the motivation to get to the bottom of what went down and to do so without delay.

We also need accountability. Malawians should not let the perpetrators of these frauds to go unpunished.

Let us not underestimate the colossal damage this debacle has done to the image of our country coming, as it does, on the heels of another devastating ‘cashgate’ scandal.

Frankly, enough is enough and if the perpetrators of this fraud are not exposed and severely punished, this country will further confirm its ‘cashgate’-attained status as a failed state.

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