By Vincent Gunde
A Concerned Citizen of Malawi Linda Matola, has advised Malawians not to be fooled by the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) government and Justice Annabel Mtalimanja pushing to use Smartmatic electronic voting machines, claiming that this is MCP exit strategy, not a solution.
Matola says on paper, Smartmatic sounds modern and efficient and Malawians should not be fooled by that saying this move is not about development or technology, it is about power and the people of Malawi deserve to know the truth.
She says the MCP and Mec want Malawians to believe that Smartmatic machines are for faster results, and transparency, but if that were true, they would be open to the public input, testing and independent oversight but Mec is denying access by independent auditors.
Writing on his face book page, Matola says there are clear examples from other countries, Smartmatic has failed, in Venezuela they used Smartimatic for years but in 2017 the Company itself admitted that the government manipulated the results, over one million fake votes were added.
Matola says in the Philippines, Smatimatic has been at the centre of controversies in every election, machines failed, results were delayed, people no longer trusted the process and even President Duterte called for Smartmatic to be dropped.
She says in Uganda, fingerprint machines from Smartmatic failed on the voting day leaving people frustrated and suspicious questioning the MCP and Mec why they want this to be used in the country while millions of Malawians are saying no to these machines.
The Citizen says MCP know that they are losing the elections, this is why they want to use Smartmatic saying if Malawians go manual counting and vote transmission to tally centre, counting done in full view and ballots are stored physically, they cannot manipulate anything and they cannot secure even 5 percent of the votes fairly.
“This is not about technology, it’s about hiding the truth, if it were for truth, independent auditors would have to gain access to audit the voters’ roll,” reads Matola’s writings on the wall.
She says Malawians are not against modernization and technology, they are against a system that already failed in other countries being used to steal votes arguing that the country don’t have secured networks and as a country, Malawi is not ready for this.
Matola has urged Malawians to speak up, to reject Smartmatic not because they fear progress, but because they know its real agenda and they are refusing to be fooled, they don’t trust this system.
