Thread by @dadakim

Here’s everything you need to know about #Malawi’s election, by @bonidulani and I in @monkeycageblog: washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/… #MalawiDecides2020 #Chisankho2020 #MalawiFreshpoll2020

“On Feb. 3, Malawi’s Constitutional Court made history as the 2nd court in Africa to have nullified a presidential election & called for fresh elections (the 1st was Kenya in 2017). Mutharika & the MEC then appealed the ruling to Malawi’s Supreme Court, which upheld the decision”

“The subsequent elections held this past Tuesday are the first in Africa when an incumbent president has lost in a court-ordered rerun election.”

“The most significant long-term consequence of the Constitutional Court’s February ruling, however, was the majority requirement to win the presidency. Until the February court ruling, Malawi had used a simple plurality rule to determine presidential election victors.”

“As the May 2019 elections showed, even unpopular incumbents like Mutharika can keep their offices if electoral victory requires only a plurality of support and the opposition is divided. The court decision on the majority threshold encouraged pre-electoral alliances...”

“Of the 6,859,570 Malawians registered to vote in the 2020 elections, 64.8 percent voted. This is down from the May 2019 elections, when 74.4 percent of registered voters participated.
Some Malawians may have avoided the polls because of the growing #COVID19 pandemic.”

“One important consequence of the pandemic was the absence of international election observers.”

“However, given the lack of condemnation from international observers at the outcome of the flawed May 2019 elections, it’s not clear that international observers are necessary for election legitimacy in the Malawian context.”

“Domestic groups — namely civil society organizations, a coordinated opposition, protesters in the street and independent judges in Malawi’s high courts — appear to have sufficiently safeguarded Malawi’s democracy.” #MalawiDecides2020 #Chisankho2020