/ 6 December 2000

MALAWI ELECTIONS CHIEF URGED TO RESIGN

HUMAN rights activists and opposition parties have called for the immediate resignation of Malawi’s Electoral Commission chairman Judge James Kalaile after he tried to dismiss massive voter apathy as “nonsense”. Kalaile said the turnout of only 14,2% of Malawi’s 5,2 million voters in the country’s first ever multi-party local government elections last month was better than most African countries. The November 21 polls were ruled largely free and fair, but the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) notes that 131 or almost one quarter of the country’s 860 wards were not contested. – African Eye News Service