By Maravi Express correspondent
Malawi Electoral Commission’s director of information, communications and technology (ICT), Muhabi Chisi told the Constitution Court sitting in Lilongwe on Thursday that the results management system (RMS) is foolproof and could not be hacked as was presented by Malawi Congress Party (MCP) witness, Daudi Suleman in his simulation made in the same court last month.
Chisi said the RMS was developed in-house in conjunction with all MEC stakeholders that included political party directors of elections, their ICT experts and that prior to implementation two dry tests were done with full participation of all parties, media and international observers.
MCP witness Suleman
However, Chisi, last witness in the presidential elections case, conceded that several attempts were made to hack into their network but they all failed.
“The system is secure and no one can hack into it. During elections there were many attempts from all over the world to hack into the system but they failed,” he told the court.
In his simulation, Chisi used Lilongwe South Constituency, which is currently vacant to demonstrate how the RMS worked because they were working on a live data base which was used for the May 21 elections and the only space available was for Lilongwe South.
Petitioners Saulos Chilima and Lazarus Chakwera
Chisi went on to discredit the simulations by presentations by MCP witness Suleman, who had introduced the concept of a ghost user who he alleged added fraudulent results into the system.
He said once results were received into the system, they could not be corrected, altered or overwritten and if done, the system could issue a warning trigger.
But there was an objection from the MCP lawyers, who argued that Chisi was giving new evidence which was not the subject of the simulation and it was sustained.
Biometric kit
He then moved on to explain that the biometric kits were configured to ensure that they cannot be used in a different constituency.
Chisi also explained that the RMS used a blind double entry system whereby there were two data entry clerks who could enter same data and the system could only accept the data if two entries of the same were made.
“Approving one result at a time could take time. There was no reason to hold on the results from the public after the Commission had approved them, so we used a query to update the status of the results in the system that were all approved by the Commission,” he said.
Chisi countered Suleman assertion that since the user could not be known then he was a ghost, saying from the RMS all results updated as batch did not have user mentioned.
He explained that there was no link or connection between the RMS and the MEC website where all the polling stations results were posted.
The case started on August 8 and has had 58 days of hearing as of Thursday and has had 58 seatings.
The first petitioner (UTM Party) presented 4 witnesses, the second (MCP) had 6 while the first respondent (President Arthur Peter Mutharika) had 2 witnesses and the second respondent (MEC) had 3.
In all, the court has heard from 15 witnesses. The case will be decided on the evidence that has been brought into court.
The court will have written and oral submission from both sides of lawyers to brought before court in hard and soft copies on 10 December.
On December 14, respondents will file in court written submissions in response to petitioners’ while on December 16 petitioners will file with the court a reply if need be to the respondents submissions.
On December 18, the Malawi Law Society and Women Lawyers will file with court their submissions while on December 19-20, the court will convene and hear oral arguments from both parties involved.
Both petitioners as well as respondents will have 2 hours each to argue before court and shall be given 1 hour to reply to each other.