HRDC hands over petition to Mzuzu City Council over MEC Commissioners Mathanga and Kunje

By Cosmas Chimaliro, MANA

Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) on Tuesday handed over a petition to Mzuzu City Council faulting President Peter Mutharika on re-appointment of two Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) Commissioners Jean Mathanga and Linda Kunje.

Reading the petition before presenting to acting Chief Executive Officer, Yotam Mutafya, HRDC chairperson for the North, Happy Mhango said it is not right for the president to retain the commissioners who have been deemed incompetent.

“The former commissioners messed up the elections as such the results were not free and fair,” Mhango said. “The Constitutional Court and the Public Appointments Committee found them no fit to run the fresh presidential election. 

“Malawians cannot trust people who failed to administer the elections professionally. We are, therefore, against the idea of choosing the two former commissioners.”

Mhango further said the President should remove MEC’s chief elections officer, Sam Alufandika, saying he was at the centre stage of manipulating the results. 

“It is unbelievable why Alufandika is maintained in the electoral body while he is the one who was sent to deliberately mismanage the elections.”

Receiving the petition, Mutafya said he will forward it to the relevant authorities within the shortest period possible. 

However, HRDC leaders complained that each time they petition government responses do not come forthwith. 

The march with which accompanied the delivery of the petition started peaceful from Katoto Secondary School upon returning from the City Council,  some marchers started stoning FDH Bank, but the police dispersed them with teargas. 

A Times Group reporter was attacked as he was trying to take pictures of the marchers, but was rescued by HRDC leaders. 

HRDC joins Citizens For Transformation (CFT), which also asks President Mutharika to revisit the appointments by removing the two controversial members.

CFT believes that the President is in contempt of Court and describes his actions as a sham and a deliberate machination aimed at provoking litigation on account that the process may delay election and prolong his stay unto power.

CFT takes cognizance that both the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal as well as Parliamentary Public Appointments Committee found the previous Commissioners incompetent in the way they handed the 2019 tripartite elections. 

“It is one of the fundamental principles of the Constitution as found at section 12(1)(b), that exercising public power and authority, as the MEC Commissioners do, there is need for trust,” says CFT.

“This principle proceeds at 12(1)(c) of the Constitution that the authority to continue public service is conditional upon the sustained trust of the people. The people of Malawi, through the Parliament, expressed their loss of trust in the said previous MEC Commissioners. 

“For that reason, they immediately became disqualified from continuing their service at MEC.”

CFT says the President defied the recommendations of Parliament and the findings of the Courts of Law and “he is continuing violating the Constitution by appointing some of those Commissioners that were not only declared incompetent but also assessed by the Court that they deliberately messed the previous Presidential election”.—Additional reporting by Duncan Mlanjira