John Saini lost to Yusuf Nthenda in the controversial 2019 Parliamentary elections by just 659 votes — 8,885 for Nthenda and 8,226 for Saini
* The controversial primaries were won by incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Yusuf Nthenda, but the other shadow aspirants describing the process as characterising fraud, favouritism and intimidation, among many other misconduct and irregularities
* Shadow MPs Memory Kachisa, Gerrard Chiunda, Glaciano Kolove, Lawrence Muhamba and journalist John Saini penned a petition to the Regional Governor calling for nullification of the results and a re-run
By Duncan Mlanjira
The National Secretariat of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has ordered a re-run of Mulanje West Constituency primary election following complaints of ‘undemocratic’ processes that took place on May 4 conducted at the Regional Office in SunnySide, in Blantyre — away from the constituency.
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The controversial primaries were won by incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Yusuf Nthenda, but the other shadow aspirants — Memory Kachisa, Gerrard Chiunda, Glaciano Kolove, Lawrence Muhamba and journalist John Saini penned a petition to the Regional Governor, describing the process as characterising “fraud, favouritism and intimidation, among many other misconduct and irregularities”.
In her letter issued on Sunday, May 18 to the aggrieved parties DPP’s director of elections, Jean Mathanga has indicates that the Party’s primary elections dispute resolution committee has agreed to proceed to do a re-run by “giving ample notice and time for preparation”.
Mathanga indicated that all parties involved in the primary elections were called to hear their grievances and to appreciate a response from MP Nthenda and from the meeting, the dispute resolution committee established that “there was breach into the voting process as unverified delegates were caught and numbers did not shoot high”.
“Confirmation that the elections were proceeding on Sunday came very late (an online meeting that went up to around 02h00 on the voting date), after all shadows requested for a postponement to a later date,” says Mathanga.
According to the petition by the five aspiring candidates issued on May 7, 2025 to the regional governor — copied to the DPP vice-president (South); secretary general and the national director of elections — they requested to declare the primaries null and void as the elections were initially scheduled to take place at Namphungo stadium in the Constituency itself.
But they were cancelled in the middle of the process because voting delegates were kept waiting for the commencement of the exercise since morning and eventually got tired after 17h00 and decided to leave.
“At this time, the presiding officers had only managed to do a rollcall for slightly over half of the delegates from Namboya Ward,” said the petition. “Nambilanje Ward had not started yet and at the rate we were going, voting would have still be on beyond 9pm or 10pm, if we had proceeded with the elections.
“At the venue where the elections were to take place, there was no electricity connectivity. We noticed deliberate tactics by the presiding officers to delay the commencement of the elections in order to provoke our delegates to abandon the voting exercise.
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“After the elections were called off, the presiding officers from the regional office held a meeting with all the aspiring candidates where we were told that the elections would be held at the Regional office on 4th May, 2025.
“At the Regional office, we also noticed serious irregularities right from the onset, which posed as a potential threat to achieving free and fair primary elections,” said the petition, adding that “the infrastructure itself at the regional office was not conducive for the elections as the brick wall was not high enough and was also open at the right corner in the front”.
“All these loopholes gave an opportunity for some hooligans believed to have been hired by some candidate, to infiltrate and participate in the voting exercise in favour of that candidate.”
The aggrieved five further indicated they presented a complaint to the presiding officers but they were assured that “security would be tightened to prevent such malpractice from happening”.
“But to the contrary, our fears were vindicated by the unexplainable excess number of voters for [incumbent MP Nthenda] that surpassed the number of delegates who voted for the Councillors earlier in the same evening.
“Furthermore, just as was the case at Namphungo, here too, we noticed that the presiding officers were engaging themselves in similar delaying tactics such that the election process only commenced after 3pm with rollcall, which went on up to about 6pm — when voting for councillors started.
“Voting was done under improvised lights from two vehicles, which were not bright enough to lighten up the place.”
Improvised lights from two vehicles
The petition also mentioned that during the pre-election meeting between the candidates and the presiding officers held in the constituency on May 3 2025, they had requested for the elections to be shifted to Monday, May 5 from May 4 on grounds that they “needed enough time to talk to the delegates and explain properly to them about the change of venue from Namphungo to the regional office as we feared that the elections would not be free and fair”.
They disclosed that their request was accepted, but to their “dismay and surprise, the presiding officers decided to bow down to the demands of Yusuf Nthenda to proceed with the elections on Sunday, disregarding the concerns of the majority (five candidates)”.
“The delegates wrote a letter to the elections officer expressing their [disapproval] of the idea of holding the primary elections at the regional office for fear of their safety and other issues such as fair play.
“Furthermore, when we had agreed that all of us candidates should put our money together to hire trucks to ferry the delegates to Blantyre, our colleague, Hon. Nthenda, refused and declared that he would ferry his delegates by himself — disregarding what we had unanimously agreed as a group.
Yusuf Nthenda, at the centre of it all
“Not surprisingly, Hon Nthenda brought to the venue several trucks full of people from unknown places certainly, outside our constituency — some of whom were the ones who jumped the fence into the premises and voted for him illegally.
“Our delegates were tormented, harassed and intimidated by the presiding officers as well as the security personnel for Hon. Nthenda, whom we had established that were paid huge sums of money to disrupt the elections as well as to aid the non-delegates ferried in trucks to the venue, to illegally participate in the voting exercise. “These people took advantage of the darkness at the venue to join the voting lines while pushing and shoving our delegates from standing on our lines, as the improvised lighting from the two vehicles proved to be inadequate.”
They further reported that voting for the MPs only started way after 19h00 and ended about 20h00 and as “as evidence that the primary elections were invaded by illegal voters, the verification process after voting revealed that there were 73 strange voters who participated in the elections of the MPs, surpassing the 656 delegates who participated in the elections of councillors.
“The presiding officers found out that Hon. Nthenda got 484 votes followed by Hon. John Saini with 221 votes. The other candidates also had a share of their votes, which totaled to 729.”
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Thus the five concluded that the process was not “conducted freely and fairy” and therefore demand the nullification of the elections and for fresh elections at a venue within Mulanje West Constituency — “where it will be conducive for a free, fair and transparent election, without any fraud and intimidation”.
They also prayed for impartial fresh primary elections organisers and all presiding officers as well as the security personnel should not be compromised to demonstrate bias towards certain candidate(s) — “as they did in the disputed elections by disregarding the views of the majority”.
In the 2019 tripartite elections, which was suspect to have been full of irregularities that led to the nullification of the presidential election, Yusuf Nthenda beat John Saini for the seat in Parliament by just 659 votes — 8,885 for Nthenda and 8,226 for Saini, publisher of popular social, political, business and sports PRIDE Magazine.
Nthenda beat the then incumbent Patricia Kaliati, who contested on the ticket of late Saulos Chilima’s UTM Party, who earned 3,810 votes.
Meanwhile, Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has issued the electoral calendar covering events up to September 16 General Elections, which highlights the interest of aspiring candidates that payment and collection of nomination papers for all the three elections begins on June 10.
In the nomination process — in accordance with Section 29(2)(a) and (b) and Section 40(2)(a) and (b) of the Presidential, Parliamentary, and Local Government Elections Act, 2023, MEC determined the nomination fees six months before the date of candidate nomination.
Thus on November 11, 2024, MEC determined the nomination fees for contesting candidates as President (K10 million); Member of Parliament (K2.5 million for male candidates and K1.25 million for females); K1.25 million for persons with disabilities); K1.25 million for youths (under 35 years).
Councillor at K200,000 for male candidates; K100,000 for females; K100,000 for persons with disabilities; and K100,000 for youths (under 35 years).
Under Sections 29(1) and 40(1) of the Act, candidates will be required to pay the non-refundable nomination fees, through a dedicated bank account, before collecting nomination forms on June 10, 2025 at respective district council offices for MPs and Councillors.
Nomination forms for Presidential candidates will be collected from the MEC head office and in cases where political parties would wish to pay for and collect nomination forms on behalf of their candidates, the parties will need to make special arrangements through MEC’s Chief Elections Officer.
The same will also apply if other organisations would wish to pay nomination fees for some candidates.
MEC plans to receive Local Government elections nomination papers from June 20-22 at respective constituency tally centres; Parliamentary’s from and Presidential from July 1-5.
Also in the calendar is the voters register inspection exercise that started on May 13 as first phase, whose second started today till Friday (May 21-23) at respective voter registration centres in Rumphi, Nkhata Bay, Likoma, Kasungu, Kasungu Municipality, Dowa, Mchinji, Ntcheu, Zomba and Zomba City, Blantyre and Blantyre City, Thyolo and Luchenza Municipality.
MEC is assuring that registered voters who lost or had their voter registration certificates damaged, will be replaced free of charge at the voters register inspection centres, adding that the replacements is a free exercise and need not be accompanied by a police report.
The voter registration certificate will be printed immediately upon a registered voter presenting themselves for verification and every registered voter is urged to take their voter registration certificate to the centre where they registered or transferred to.
But for those voters that are able, they can simply inspect their details by dialing *2509# on TNM or Airtel lines.
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