Voting delays and allegations of ballot rigging are casting a shadow over Malawi’s third multiparty elections on Thursday, as President Bakili Muluzi bows out of office after a decade marred by deepening poverty and hunger.
While the governing United Democratic Front seems certain to retain its parliamentary majority, Muluzi’s controversial choice of successor has thrown the presidential race wide open.
The poll was postponed by two days after the opposition coalition protested to the High Court that Malawians had not been given an opportunity to verify the voters roll.
The opposition grouping claimed hundreds of thousands of names had been left off the 5,7-million-long list. It also accused Muluzi of using state resources to campaign for the UDF and claimed up to 1,6-million excess ballots would be used to rig the vote — allegations denied by the ruling party.
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 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) has presided over the introduction of greater freedoms, human rights guarantees and the birth of new political parties.
”Unfortunately, his greatest achievements were on paper,” said Billy Banda of the rights group Malawi Watch, who is no relation to the former president. ”He in essence achieved very little.”
Despite promises to fight poverty, more than half of Malawi’s 12-million people survive on less than a dollar a day, according to UN figures.
Concerns over corruption, over expenditure and poor economic management have caused donors to freeze millions in foreign aid, which accounts for close to 40% of the national budget.
The country’s woes have been compounded by three successive years of drought and a devastating HIV epidemic that has infected some 14% of the population.
”We see nothing here but poverty,” said Andy Harry, swinging a dull blade through waist-high grass on the outskirts of the capital, Blantyre. The 25-year-old earns just 55 kwacha (50 US cents) a day clearing grass to support his wife and three-year-old son.
”The government has made a mess of things, and we need to change it with our votes,” he said.
Analysts, however, say mounting frustration is unlikely to cost the ruling party the parliamentary election. The UDF currently holds 93 of the National Assembly’s 193 seats, compared with 66 for its nearest rival, the Malawi Congress Party.
”Malawian politics is not based on strong issues, values and ideologies,” said Nixon Khembo, of Malawi University’s Centre for Social Research. ”In Africa and Malawi, politics is largely led by political patronage.”
Potentially more damaging is Muluzi’s choice of successor, which was deeply unpopular within his party and prompted a string of defections to the opposition.
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, Bingu wa Mutharika, for the job.
The selection of a political outsider, who in 1999 mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Muluzi 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 electoral officials of colluding with the ruling party to rig the vote.
The coalition, which is contending Thursday’s vote under protest, says Muluzi’s abuses could cost his party the presidency.
”It all stems from bad leadership,” said the coalition’s deputy leader, Aleke Banda, also no relation to the former president.
A total of five presidential and 1 254 parliamentary candidates from 15 parties are participating in Thursday’s vote. Electoral officials expect to announce results within two days, and the new president is to be sworn in by Monday. – Sapa-AP