ELECTORAL AND VOTING REFORMS
“The electoral reforms are to address the ‘mischief’ associated with problems in the process of constituency or ward demarcation, the electoral law, electoral systems, electoral administration and the
management of campaigns, result determination and the announcement of results.”
1) Amending section 96 of the PPEA to enable Returning Officers to determine results for parliamentary and local government and to certify the presidential count at the district level within a 48 hour timeframe. 2) Amending section 96 to clarify the powers of determination vis-a-vis the publication of results under section 99 of the PPEA. Results Announcement: Under the current electoral laws, the announcement of official results is governed by section 99 with respect to parliamentary and presidential elections and section 83 in the case of local government elections.
According to these provisions, the national elections results must be published within eight days from the last polling day and in any event not later than forty- eight hours from the conclusion of the determination. In 2014 the Electoral systems for no
apparent reason broke down particularly for the Presidential Elections to the extent that it had to take the Judicial Court to make a determination on behalf of the Electoral Commission as to who should be declared the winner. It is now proposed to increase the number of days for making an electoral determination from eight to 10 days or to be staggered for Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Elections to 7, 14 and 21 days respectively. This would require: 1) Amending section 99 of the PPEA to have a one off extension of the period when the results must be announced by the MEC not exceeding 72 hours.
2) Giving power to the MEC to order a re-run where glaring irregularities abound even before the announcement of the result as required by section 99 of the PPEA.
Inauguration: Since the advent of multi-party elections in Malawi, the speed at which the President-elect is sworn into office is noticeable. The misconception is that once a person has been sworn-in as President of this country, no electoral commission or court would undo his/her presidency. The proposed reform is to amend section 100 to the effect that inauguration should be done after settlement of all electoral petitions, if any, which must be adjudicated upon within 30 days. The proposed reform law on handover is under the Presidential (Transition) Bill 2015 but unfortunately it does not deal with the issue of the date of inauguration or the swearing in of the President- elect pending resolution of electoral petitions. The Presidential (Transition) Bill would be best placed to deal with the matter by stating, in line
154 | The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue Three
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