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Malawi— meaning, the state— is no different from a human being; they both breathe.
While
a human being breathes every now and then— taking in the so-called breath of
life called oxygen while expelling puffs of carbon dioxide— Malawi the nation
state has fallen, since the multiparty elections of 1994, into the habit of
taking political breaths every five years.
This
is because— five presidential elections later, five national parliamentary
elections later, two local government elections later— it is written that
Malawi has to hold elections every five years, as one way of giving the electorate
the opportunity to express themselves so that, in so doing, political leaders
can be given a fresh mandate or get banished from national politics altogether.
Over
the years, public media have taken a crucial role in elections, giving
competing political parties – do not mind their lack of clear ideologies— the
platform the articulate their policies.
This
is well-articulated by Catherine Musuva, who wrote in Chapter 7 in Denis
Kadima and Susan Booysen (eds)’s Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa 1989-2009: 20 Years of
Multiparty Democracy,
thus:
“The
PPEA [Parliamentary and Presidential Elections Act, 1993] states that every
political party is entitled to have its campaign reported on by the Malawi
Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and in any newspaper in circulation in the
country. Furthermore, the Act commits the MBC to neutrality in the reporting of
news.
“The
Act also empowers the Mec, by arrangement with the MBC, to allocate time on the
radio to political parties. Although the Act prohibits political parties and
candidates from making commercial advertisements for campaigning in the MBC,
all political parties either placed commercial advertisements with the MBC or
complained of a lack of financial resources to do so in the run-up to the 2004
elections. At the time, neither the MBC nor the political parties seemed to be
aware of the law in this regard.
“The
electronic and print media coverage of electoral campaigns in Malawi has
generally been extensive. However, concerns over unbalanced media coverage and
the unfair use of the state media, namely the MBC and Malawi Television (TVM),
have been raised in all four elections held from 1994 to 2009. In order to
ensure better-balanced media coverage of the 2004 elections, a number of steps
were taken in collaboration with political parties, the Mec, CSOs and the donor
community. Most importantly, a media monitoring unit was established within the
Mec. Nonetheless, in the 2004 elections the MBC coverage was biased towards the
incumbent party, the UDF (Rakner & Svasand 2005).”
However,
while the role of MBC has been extensively highlighted, it is not always the
case that the institution lives up to citizens’ billing. Musuva
aptly captures this aspect of MBC.
“The
Mec once again accused the state-owned media of bias and not abiding by the
media code of conduct. The MEC chairperson berated the state media for failing
to level the playing field, adding that the MEC's hands were tied in dealing
with the situation as the law does not provide it with any significant power
(Kasawala 2009).”
While
observers such as human rights activist Billy Mayaya observes that the 1994 elections
were “fairly” covered by MBC, in that all political parties were given the
platform, it can be said, without fear of retraction, that this was not the
case in the 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections, as ruling parties enjoyed more
pieces of the cake than opposition political parties.
Ironically,
the 1994 elections, which observers say were well covered, saw the then ruling
Malawi Congress Party lose the elections to the United Democratic Front, whose
presidential candidate Bakili Muluzi bought his ticket, courtesy of the ballot,
to Sanjika Palace.
The
only other time a ruling party – of course, there are questions over whether
the People’s Party was really a ruling party, knowing, as it were, that the
party found itself in the driving seat using the back door— lost presidential
elections is in 2014, but Mec suggested in its media monitoring reports that
the elections were no fairer than those of 1994.
Which
brings us to the issue of the role of public [read, State] media in elections.
Same old script
Malawi’s
post-1994 elections have been predictable in some aspects, notably conduct
of public media and voting patterns.
Since
1994, when Malawians transformed the political landscape to a magnitude that
signals nothing less than a fundamental mutation in the national character, the
conduct of elections have been predictable in terms of regional voting patterns
and ruling parties’ conduct over state-run media.
Let
us start with regional patterns. In 1994, Malawians voted along regional lines.
This is evident in the fact that the eventual presidential winner, Muluzi, got
42.2 percent (South), Kamuzu Banda 33.5 per cent from his Central region
stronghold and Chakufwa Chihana (Alliance for Democracy) with 18.9 per cent,
mainly from the Northern region.
This
was almost repeated in 1999 when Muluzi got 51.37 percent in the South, the
Malawi Congress Party/Alliance for Democracy coalition 44.30 per cent in the
Central and Northern region, respectively, and Kamlepo Kalua who got
1.43percent of the national vote.
This
was further repeated in 2004, when UDF presidential candidate Bingu wa
Mutharika chalked 35.89 per cent in the South, Malawi Congress Party’s (MCP)
John Tembo 27.13 per cent and Gwanda Chakuamba of the Mgwirizano Coalition
25.72 per cent.
To
cut a disappointing story short, this was further repeated in 2009 and 2014
and, possible, will be repeated in the 2019 elections.
Add
to these two challenges factors such as the legal environment in which the
electoral body operates, budgeting constraints, complex processes leading to
voter registration and voters roll verification, transportation hitches as well
as registration periods corroding with the farming season or rains and we have
another disaster in the making in 2019.
Perhaps
the only positive— which, again, has been challenged— is that data gathered by
the National Registration Bureau will be used in registering voters in the 2019
elections, which could solve some of the challenges that affect voters roll
credibility.
But
some of the challenges may remain because, according to policy analyst Rafiq
Hajat, both ruling political parties and the opposition have vested interests
in, say, public media.
“There
was time, I remember, when the opposition were in majority in Parliament but
never
amended the Communications Act, thinking they would go into government and take advantage of the situation,” he said.
amended the Communications Act, thinking they would go into government and take advantage of the situation,” he said.
So,
again, this is just a circle— like breathing in and out— and some of the
challenges will, really, never go away because they serve defined purposes.
