Media Institute of Southern African – Malawi Chapter (MISA Malawi) will hold presidential debates ahead of the May 21 elections.
The two debates will be held on March 29 and 5 April at Bingu International Convention Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe.
They are aimed at giving Malawians an opportunity to examine presidential candidates before the polls on 21 May.
Speaking at a press briefing at BICC in Lilongwe, Chairperson for Misa Malawi Teresa Ndanga said they believe that the 2019 debates will create a platform for the candidates to openly debate and commit to addressing several policy issues.
Ndanga added that the organisers – MISA Malawi and Civil Society Organisations – believe that the debates will promote and focus the elections on issues rather than personalities as well as facilitate equal access to mainstream national media.
“Past election observer reports show that Malawi’s political environment during election is characterised by personal issues as points for gathering support with discussion of critical issues of national importance left out,” she explained.
The chairperson noted that the 2014 debates were an attempt to deal with these challenges and it is within the same context that the 2019 debates are being organised.
This will be the second time that Malawi is holding presidential debates before the polls.
A taskforce for the debate has developed criteria to guide the selection process of presidential candidates to take part in the debates.
Some of the conditions are that the participants have to be from parties which conducted democratic internal party elections for positions and which agreed to abide by a commitment to non-violence.
The taskforce consists of Misa Malawi, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), Times Group, Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) and CSOs such as Centre for Multiparty Democracy (CMD) and Public Affairs Committee (PAC).
It is indeed good time for the people of Malawi to know about why should we trust them. I think time has come for us as Malawians should take part on removing
the seating president if he/she doesn’t deliver, we don’t have to wait for members of parliament to decide for us while they are enjoy with nothing but making noise in Parliament.