Tag Archives: Malawi

Malawi 2019 Election – with Court annulment, a look back at USAID’s version of post election “Lessons Learned”

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Update: the latest on the annulment of the election from Quartz Africa. And from The Guardian: “Malawi court annuls 2019 election results and calls for new vote.”

Here is what USAID has had to say as of June 27, 2019 on “Lessons From Malawi’s 2019 Elections”:

. . . .

In part due to considerable programmatic support – including USAID assistance – monitors observed commendable improvements in the MEC’s electoral preparation, voting process and results transmission system compared to previous elections.  Notably, as shown above, the MEC’s final result closely tracked with the USAID-supported non-partisan parallel vote tabulation, implemented by the Malawi Election Support Network (MESN) and National Democratic Institute (NDI).  

In addition, despite pre-electoral intimidation and violence against female candidates, 44 of Malawi’s 193 new parliamentarians are women, up from just 32 in 2014. 

Nevertheless, many voters have raised questions about the integrity of the process and Malawian opposition parties have petitioned to the courts to annul the results. While USAID/Malawi’s Democracy, Rights and Governance (DRG) team played a significant role in supporting the MEC to deliver a credible election, as well as civil society’s oversight of the process, more work remains to be done. USAID will continue to provide post election support, through NDI and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), to build confidence in Malawi’s political processes and improve citizen-state relations.

 

USAID Supported a Stronger Electoral Process…

 

In 2018, USAID joined DFID, European Union, Norway, Irish Aid, and UNDP by investing $1 million in the UNDP’s “Election Basket Fund,” which was established to pool international donor resources in support of the MEC’s election strategy, preparation, management, and tabulation. UNDP led the donor community in helping the MEC with critical institutional reforms and electoral preparations, registered 6.8 million voters through newly-issued biometric ID cards, engaged with political parties in preparation for the elections, supported women’s participation in the electoral process, strengthened the capacity of the Malawi Police Services to mitigate electoral violence, and supported election-day logistics and results transmission.

To complement the UNDP Basket Fund efforts, USAID and DFID jointly provided $4 million to the National Democratic Institute(link is external) (NDI) and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems(link is external)(IFES) to improve civil society and political party oversight and engagement. NDI and its partner MESN coordinated with the MEC on civic and voter education initiatives and mobilized long term observers.  Working with with Democracy Works Foundation, MISA Malawi and broad group of local actors, NDI produced three televised presidential debates and trained political party monitors for election day oversight.

Given the highly competitive race for president, strengthening citizen confidence in the results management process was critical.  On election day, MESN and NDI deployed over 900 observers to monitor all day and conduct a parallel vote tabulation to try to give Malawians greater confidence that the tally of ballots was transparent and accurate. NDI’s partner Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Malawi tracked and reported on media bias and established a fact-checker to combat fake news(link is external) on social media.

IFES helped the MEC to train judges on electoral dispute resolution, established an online election Early Warning/Early Response (EWER)(link is external) system to track and mitigate electoral violence, and  provided technical assistance on strategic communications in the lead-up to the elections, and throughout the voting and tabulation processes. 

In addition to these measures, USAID’s DRG team coordinated the US Government observer effort on election day. More than 80 observers from the US, UK, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Canada travelled together to visit polling and tabulation stations in 13 of Malawi’s 28 districts and submitted 240 observer reports.

But Challenges Remain …

. . . .

Through these and other efforts, the MEC and electoral stakeholders addressed many critical challenges from the 2014 election.  While observers noted a few logistical and organizational problems in some of the more than 5000 polling stations throughout Malawi, the consensus of the observer missions are reflected in the African Union’s Election Observer Mission preliminary statement, which concludes that:

 …the 2019 Tripartite Elections have provided Malawians with the opportunity to choose their leaders at various layers of government in accordance with the legal framework for elections in Malawi, and in accordance with the principles espoused in the various instruments of the AU. The elections took place in a peaceful environment and at the time of this statement, the mission had not notes any serious concerns with the process, either witnessed or observed.

Despite these efforts and a generally well conducted election, the public reaction post-election has been largely negative highlighting remaining gaps as well as a concerning level of mistrust between the public towards its democratic institutions and political actors.  Neither improved electoral transparency and preparations, election-day operations nor an independent PVT has assuaged the public’s concerns over election rigging.  Since the results were announced, Malawi has seen continued protests – some marred by violence – calling for the annulment of the results and resignation of MEC Commissioners.  Once again Malawi’s electoral outcome is in the hands of the courts.  

Implications for Future

Clearly, we need to do additional work to support both Malawi’s election management and to increase the citizenry’s trust in democratic institutions.  The trust issue is critical.  Afrobarometer’s recent study(link is external) underscores these issues in its June 2019 paper that shows that in 2017 only 57% of Malawians “agree” or “agree very strongly” that leaders should be chosen through regular, open, and honest elections. This means out of 34 African countries surveyed, Malawi’s trust in democratic systems is 3rd from the bottom – a concerning position for a democracy that has just completed its sixth election.

 

I hope this can be an occasion for a deeper and more open discussion about the learning opportunities than has happened from the problems over the years in Kenya.

Malawi Election follow-up

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See Opposition Protests in Malawi Threaten Mutharika’s Already Fragile Mandate, by Elliot Waldman, in World Politics Review, June 13, 2019.

My previous posts of May 25-27: #MalawiDecides2019: My inquiry to the Malawi Electoral Support Network, MESN, on PVT

(Noting “a hole in media reporting and public affairs announcements”:

Dear MESN,

Does your PVT receive funding from USAID (as per usual practice for these GNDEM PVT’s in Africa)? If so, what is the contractual arrangement for this funding? If not, how is the PVT funded? Thank you for a quick response given approaching deadlines!)

With Parliamanentary results released by Malawi Election Commission but final Presidential results announcement stayed, IFES works on Security and Conflict Prevention

Malawi Election Commission announces incumbent win in a ‘squeaker’–waiting on PVT

Malawi PVT released by MESN: Presidential results consistent with MEC official results, but top two candidates’ ranges overlap

I did receive a response from MESN on June 6 to my inquiry:

Thank you for your media inquiry about MESN and our observation of the
2019 Tripartite Elections. MESN receives funding from an array of
development funders. MESN’s funding for both long-term observation and
the parallel vote tabulation (PVT) comes from the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID) through the Malawi Electoral
Integrity Program (MEIP) managed by the Consortium for Elections and
Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS) . All questions about the
terms and conditions of funding agreement should be addressed to
USAID. I have attached for your information copies of our preliminary
and verification statements.

From our Embassy before the vote:

It might have been worthwhile for the Embassy to note in its May 23 Tweet that when “Both men were learning more about the system to validate the election results” the USAID Mission Director was visiting a USAID-funded program.

[You will notice if you read my previous posts I do not have any substantive criticism of how the PVT results were reported, rather I was inquiring about the funding prior to the reporting. I also noted in Zimbabwe that the reporting seemed to be carefully worded to avoid being misconstrued in the way that I have been concerned about in Kenya in 2013.]

Malawi PVT released by MESN – presidential results consistent with MEC official results, but top two candidates’ ranges overlap

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Malawi PVT results from the Malawi Electoral Support Network  shows:

• Dr. Lazarus Chakwera (MCP) between 32.8% and 37.4%;

• Dr. Saulous Klaus Chilima (UTM) between 18.8% and 21.4%;

• Professor John Eugene Chisi (UP) between 0.3% and 0.5%;

• Mr. Reverend Hadwick Kaliya (Independent) between 0.2% and 0.4%;

• Mr. Peter Dominic Sinosi Driver Kuwani (MMD) between 0.3% and 0.5%;

• Mr. Atepele Austin Muluzi (UDF) between 4.3% and 5.7%; and

• Mutharika between 36.4% and 40.8%.

The PVT estimates, listed above, are consistent with the MEC’s official presidential results and therefore, the PVT can independently verify that the official results for the presidential election as announced by MEC reflect ballots cast and counted at polling streams. While PVT does not provide evidence that the presidential results have been manipulated, the PVT results data cannot definitively determine the order for the two leading candidates because of the overlap in the estimated ranges.

Read the whole release here.

Malawi Election Commission announces incumbent win in a “squeaker” – waiting on PVT

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With the incumbent announced as winning with a narrower margin and a total of less than 39% of the vote, with turnout over 75%, there will be questions and frustrations.

Since the election is so close, the PVT is likely to show either of the top two candidates as a possible winner, although it could be pretty interesting if it shows something different. Since it has been done for days presumably it was ready for release some time ago.

Here is what was released for the last election in 2014.

With Parliamentary results released by Malawi Election Commission, but final Presidential results announcement stayed, IFES works on security and conflict prevention

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Update: It is worth looking carefully at the MESN Detailed Preliminary Statement from the PVT. In general it suggests the voting was well conducted. I would flag the seven percent of the sampled polling stations where the results were not posted. See the USAID-funded research paper from Posner and Osofu at UCLA I linked below for why they identify the lack of posting of results as one of their indicators of potential fraud. I have never seen any legitimate excuse for not posting the results at the polling station and it certainly seems fundamental to me. I would note that seven percent is, to my recollection, a much better performance than what the Carter Center observers were seeming in their Preliminary Statement in Kenya in 2013, although that was not structured as a “PVT” sample as such.

——

“Malawi’s election results being delayed after vote forgery claims” Quartz Africa

Under the USAID Malawi Electoral Integrity Program with CEPPS (the Consortium for Electoral Party and Process Strengthening)–the program under which NDI is providing “technical support” to the Parallel Vote Tabulation discussed in my last post–IFES is doing the work it has described in an April 2019 summary for the continent here:

Malawi Through the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS), IFES is supporting the 2019 tripartite elections under the “Malawi Electoral Integrity Program.” Particularly, IFES’ activities are focused on addressing electoral security through violence monitoring and incident reporting for more effective conflict mitigation and resolution, and by strengthening cooperation and information exchange between civil society, multiparty liaison committees and governmental electoral security actors, including the Malawi Election Commission (MEC). IFES will strengthen existing conflict mitigation and mediation platforms, support targeted interventions in areas identified as lhotspots, and raise public awareness about electoral violence, conflict mitigation and mediation tools available to the public. IFES will coordinate with the United Nations Development Programme on its “Malawi Electoral Cycle Support” program to build stronger linkages among the MEC and local stakeholders involved in conflict prevention.

CEPPS is a consortium among IRI, NDI and IFES which provides for a master funding arrangement between USAID and the group under which USAID then enters specific subsidiary agreements for individual programs such as the polling program in Kenya that funded Exit Polls through IRI for the 2005 and 2007 elections, or the Kenya Election and Political Process Strengthening Program for 2011-15 which was led by the coalition with separate workshares for IFES, NDI and IRI, with NDI supporting the PVT through the domestic observation group ELOG (set up as a permanent successor to 2007’s KEDOF domestic observation group at the recommendation of the 2008 Kreigler Commission report).

As an example of a different permutation, for the 2017 election, USAID solicited proposals for agreements involving one overall organization, with sub-agreements for other workshare. In that case the program was awarded to IFES, with the IRI and NDI work (including the PVT piece) under subagreements with IFES rather than directly with USAID as I understand it (this is based on the USAID solicitation and award announcements; the agreement is not published).

I have not watched Malawi closely and do not have any idea of the specific contractual arrangements of the MEIP program for this year.

With the presidential results finalization delayed, this will put everyone under significant pressure and may involve some hard judgment calls. We will all have to hope for the best as far as both the election and any negative situations regarding violence or insecurity.

Update: as a bonus, here is a 2015 paper from Daniel Posner and George Ofosu of UCLA, “Domestic Election Observers and Electoral Fraud in Malawi’s 2014 Election“.

Abstract

We present findings from a field experiment that estimates the causal effect of domestic election observers on election day malfeasance and downstream aggregation fraud in Malawi’s 2014 general elections. Our analyses leverage the random assignment of election observers to 1,049 polling stations located in a nationally representative sample of 90 constituencies. Since these polling stations already had observers assigned by other domestic monitoring organizations, our results speak to the marginal impact on electoral fraud of having an additional observer. We find that polling stations to which an additional observer was deployed had systematically lower rates of turnout and overvoting, and fewer votes for the presidential candidate who ultimately won the election—all results consistent with the deterrence of electoral fraud by the presence of the additional observer. We also find that the presence of the additional observer increases the likelihood that election results are not publicly posted, and that the non-posting of results is associated with an increased likelihood of aggregation fraud on behalf of the winning party, which we measure by comparing polling station-level election tallies with the official results reported by the Malawi Electoral Commission. We interpret this finding as suggesting that the presence of the additional observers may have displaced fraud from election day to the aggregation phase, and that the non-posting of the results may have been part of a conscious strategy to mask these efforts.