Wrapped in blankets against an early morning chill, voters waited in long lines to cast ballots on Thursday in Malawi’s third multiparty elections, a poll marred by logistical problems and allegations of vote rigging before it even began.
President Bakili Muluzi, who led the country from dictatorship to democracy, is bowing out after a decade of deepening poverty and hunger. While his United Democratic Front seems certain to retain its parliamentary majority, his controversial choice of successor has thrown the presidential race wide open.
Voting stations opened up to an hour and half late because of delays transporting staff and materials.
At one station in the capital, Blantyre, voters refused to cast ballots after the supervisor and police arrived drunk and ballot boxes were found unsealed, electoral officials said. The angry crowd attacked one of the officers, who was taken to hospital.
In another Blantyre district, the parliamentary vote was postponed when an independent candidate was left off ballot papers.
Malawi Electoral Commission spokesperson Fergus Lipenga said officials were urgently addressing the problems to ensure everyone had a chance to vote.
”These types of mistakes reflect badly on our young democracy,” said opposition leader Brown Brown James Mpinganjira, one of five candidates running for president. ”It will only flourish when the UDF is gone.”
Voters appeared undeterred, however, waiting patiently in snaking lines up to 500 long to cast their ballots.
”It shows people have largely understood what happened in the last 10 years, that we have entrenched freedom,” said Bingu wa Mutharika, running for the ruling party. ”The UDF has improved infrastructure, given people schools and hospitals. We are not saying it is perfect, but it is a start.”
For almost 30 years, this landlocked country, one of Africa’s poorest, was governed as an absolute dictatorship by self-proclaimed president-for-life Hastings Kamuzu Banda. Thousands of political opponents were jailed, tortured, killed or hounded into exile while Banda amassed a fortune worth millions of dollars.
Under pressure from Western aid donors, he was removed in the country’s first multiparty elections in 1994, won by Muluzi.
Muluzi (61) presided over the introduction of greater freedoms, human rights guarantees and the birth of new parties. But despite promises to fight poverty, more than half the country’s 12-million people survive on less than a dollar a day.
Concerns over corruption and poor economic management have caused donors to freeze millions in foreign aid, which accounts for close to 40% of the national budget. Years of drought and a devastating HIV epidemic have compounded Malawi’s woes.
”The UDF and Muluzi only take from us,” complained a 23-year-old tea plantation worker waiting to vote in Chisitu village, about 100km south of Blantyre. ”They tell you they will make the country rich, but all we see is them getting richer and fatter.”
He gave his name only as Charles for fear of retribution by ruling party militants, accused of isolated incidents of campaign violence.
More damaging still was Muluzi’s choice of successor, which prompted a string of defections from the ruling party.
Muluzi tried and failed to have the constitution changed to allow him to seek a third five-year term before nominating his 70-year-old economic planning minister for the job.
The selection of a political outsider, who in 1999 mounted an unsuccessful presidential challenge at the head of his own party, angered UDF stalwarts. Wa Mutharika’s rivals say he would be a figurehead, with Muluzi the real power behind the presidency.
His main challenger is Gwanda Chakuamba (69) who heads a seven-member opposition coalition that has accused the electoral commission of colluding with the ruling party to rig the vote — allegations denied by both.
The election was postponed by two days after the coalition protested to the High Court that Malawians had not been given an opportunity to verify the voters roll.
The group claimed hundreds of thousands of names had been left off the 5,7-million-long list and up to 1,6-million excess ballots printed. It also accused Muluzi of using state resources to campaign for the UDF.
Voters whose names did not appear on the computerised roll were allowed to cast ballots on Thursday if they appeared on the original written lists, but the process was causing long delays.
A total of 1 254 parliamentary candidates from 15 parties were contending the vote. Electoral officials expect to announce results within two days, and the new president is to be sworn in by Monday. – Sapa-AP