MALAWI: MEC Works with Smartmatic & more – 10th Dec 2024

Muli bwanji from BA! This is the Rorshok Malawi Update from the 10th of December twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Malawi.

The Malawi Electoral Commission (or MEC) said they will continue working with Smartmatic, an Information Technology company contracted to supply devices and software, to manage the twenty twenty-five Presidential elections.

Some locals on social media said they were unhappy with MEC’s contract with Smartmatic because they felt election results could be tampered with, especially because Smartmatic has an alleged history of mismanaging international elections.

Despite these concerns, on Monday the 9th, Andrew Mpesi, the Chief Elections Officer at MEC, admitted that the Commission is aware of Smartmatic’s controversial history, but said the allegations should not be used to interpret the company’s relations with Malawi.

MEC’s disregard for locals’ concerns made some people in Lilongwe take to the streets.

Last month, we mentioned that a civil society organization organized two different protests against MEC and the government, but both of them failed because some masked men carrying pangas attacked the demonstrators. There were calls for the arrest of the masked men because they had violated the protestors’ rights to demonstrate, but the police did nothing until Friday the 6th.

Merlyne Yolamu, the Inspector General of Police, announced that the police had arrested some of the masked men and asked locals to be patient with the police since they had a lot on their plates.

However, the arrests were put into question because they might not have been made since the police did not reveal any names of the arrested persons.

Speaking of the police, according to a study by the research network Afrobarometer, shared on social media on Friday the 6th, the police is the most corrupt institution in Malawi.

The Center for Social Research, a local research organization, conducted its own research and had similar findings, revealing that half of the citizens had paid bribes to the police.

The local study also said that seven out of ten Malawians feel the government is doing a bad job fighting corruption, while two-thirds feel corruption has increased over the years.

Another study by the Afrobarometer also released on Friday the 6th revealed interesting statistics concerning the upcoming twenty twenty-five Presidential elections. They said that, if Malawians had voted in August this year, they would have brought back the Democratic Progressive Party (or DPP), which was voted out by the current administration, the Malawi Congress Party (or MCP).

The study said that 43% would have voted for the DPP, 29% would have chosen the MCP, while only 7% would have voted for the United Transformation Movement, and 2% for the United Democratic Front.

However, some locals on Twitter thought the findings were not true because of the government’s alleged fraudulent practices. So the numbers by Afrobarometer were put into question because something fishy was happening on the ground.

On a related note, some children under eighteen have been registering for the upcoming Presidential elections.

One child had a National Identity Card from the National Registration Bureau, which is only given to citizens over eighteen, but the child looked no older than fifteen. Another trending video showed more children standing in line to register to vote. You can check it out with the link in our show notes!

This might be a trick that the government is using to make sure they win the elections by all means.

Meanwhile, there have been growing concerns that children in Malawi are being exposed to disorderly behaviors that they are copying because they think it’s cool.

These concerns became the topic of the day on Sunday the 8th after a local media house reported that secondary school students from Chisapi Private Schools in Blantyre in the Southern Region set their classes and school bus on fire because they were unhappy with the food they were getting at the boarding school.

One comment on the Facebook post said if these behaviors are not addressed, we might raise a generation that lacks respect for rules, authority, and each other.

In trending news, Tabitha Chawinga and her sister Temwa have made the top-five shortlist for the Women's Footballer of The Year Award by the Confederation of African Football (or CAF). The shortlist was released on Wednesday the 4th, and also includes Zambia’s Barbara Banda, Morocco's Sanaa Mmsoudy, and Nigeria's Chiamaka Nnadpzie.

In its statement, CAF said this year’s nominees reflect the excellence in women’s football across the continent after their impressive performances at club and national team level. The winners will be chosen through votes from the CAF Technical Committee, media professionals, head coaches, and captains of member associations, among others. The results will be revealed through an awards gala scheduled for Monday the 16th in Morocco.

Some notable people have quit their jobs.

For instance, on Saturday the 7th, Agnes Makonda Nyalonje, the Minister of Labor, resigned from the Cabinet with immediate effect because the death of Former Vice President Saulos Chilima changed a lot for her.

She said she wanted to resign in July, but President Lazarus Chakwera asked her to delay and only accepted her resignation this month.

On Sunday the 8th, Jeremiah Mwaungulu, a prominent actor known for his role as Chisi in the Tikuferanji drama on the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation television, also announced that he had quit his job after joining the play in two thousand three. He didn’t say why he resigned.

There was a post circulating on Facebook saying that Wilson Banda, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi, had also quit his job. But on Sunday the 8th, the central bank wrote a statement denying the rumors.

However, some users on Twitter told the Reserve Bank to sue the page that started the rumors, if the story was indeed fake. They think refuting the rumors with no legal action is not enough to convince people that they are baseless.

Next up, Nsamzimama Claude, a popular businessman in Mangochi known as JC, died in a road accident on Saturday the 7th.

On Sunday the 8th, local news said that the accident happened around the Samama area along the Mangochi-Monkey Bay Road located in the Southern Region around eight PM. JC collided with a stationary truck while coming from Monkey Bay side.

Some locals took to social media to express their condolences to JC's family.

Fizzy drinks like Coca-Cola and Fanta are a staple for most Malawians on Christmas, but some Facebook users said they might have to forgo the beverages this year because of the price adjustment that Coca-Cola Beverages Malawi announced on Monday the 9th. The adjustment is effective immediately and applies to all their products.

According to the statement, drinks like the 300-milliliter bottle of Coca-Cola will now sell at 850 Kwacha, which is fifty US cents, up from 500 Kwacha, about thirty cents in most locations.

Other affected and popular commodities include the Sobo Squash juice and the Quench bottled water.

And to close this edition, some statistics from the World Tourism Council sparked some discussions on Twitter. The data revealed that in twenty twenty-three, Zambia earned over 900 million dollars from tourism, followed by Mozambique with over 300 million, and then Zimbabwe with 215 million dollars. Malawi earned the lowest, with only 35.5 million dollars. While the data said Malawi could earn over 40 million this year, the gap between Malawi and its neighboring countries is so wide, that some locals started talking on Twitter to figure out the reason behind the low revenue.

Some points raised in the discussion include expensive flight prices, poor infrastructure, a lack of interesting tourist activities, and bad advertising.

To know more about the World Tourism Council’s findings, click on the link in the show notes!

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Pitani bwino!