MEC chairperson given two weeks to resign

The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has called for the immediate resignation of Dr. Jane Ansah as chairperson of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC).

The HRDC has asked Ansah to honorably step down in the next two weeks (14 days) from 4th June, 2019.

This is contained in an open letter signed by the organization’s two National Chairpersons, Timothy Mtambo and Gift Trapence dated 4th June, 2019.

The organisation says it will use all legally acceptable means and actions at its disposal if Ansah failes to resign after 14 days.

In the letter, the HRDC says it finds Ansah’s approach and attitude in handling electoral stakeholders’ complaints about the results management component of the 2019 tripartite elections scandalous and unacceptable.

The letter says Malawi’s electoral process has become a subject of international ridicule because of the way Ansah mismanaged the results in favour of “her preferred candidate, president professor Arthur Peter Mutharika, while subverting the will of ordinary Malawian voters.”

It adds that many observers raised red flags on malpractices and irregularities including tipp-exed results sheets, denying copies of results sheets to party monitors, and electoral staff being found with pre_ filled results sheets.

The HRDC says it takes the view that Justice Ansah wrongly dismissed the complaints and went ahead to announce election results that were not credible.

The coalition faults Justice Ansah on the way she handled the 147 electoral complaints which she told the nation she was addressing but up to date no one knows how she specifically addressed the problems as the process was not done in a transparent manner.

In Lilongwe on Tuesday, there was a second huge demonstration denouncing results of the presidential election.

The demonstrators, carrying placards and banners calling for President Mutharika to resign, entered each and every government office at the Capital Hill in Lilongwe telling civil servants to stop working claiming that the country has no president.

Story by Vincent Gunde