By Vincent Gunde
Patriotic citizens, groups and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have teamed up under the banner Citizens for Credible Elections to hold peaceful demonstrations in the Capital-Lilongwe on Thursday 26th June, 2025.
The Citizen for Credible Elections says the peaceful demonstrations are aimed at ensuring credibility and trust between the voters and the electoral body -Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) and forcing Mec Chairperson Justice Annabel Mtalimanja and Mec Chief Elections Officer Andrew Mpesi to resign.
They say the conduct displayed by the duo is clearly manifested by the Mec’s rejection of demands by electoral stakeholders to allow an independent audit of the Electoral Management to see what is in the system.
Mrs. Esnath Kaliza Banda of Area 51 in Lilongwe has asked opposition parties to file a case in a court ofl aw and write a joint letter to the international community and donors that they are boycotting the 16th September, 2025 elections.
Kaliza said even though Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) can hold 100 peaceful demonstrations to force Mec Chairperson Justice Annabel Mtalimanja to resign, the MCP government of President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera will not bow down to the demands by electoral stakeholders to audit the voters roll.
She said the MCP is all aware that if there is an independent audit, it will expose all of its rigging scheme and as a result, they are doing all of what they can to reject independent auditors from having access to the voters’ roll.
Kaliza said truth to be said, Malawians are tired of being ruled by President Chakwera and his Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and they don’t want them to bounce back into government claiming that it will be unforgettable mistake to allow MCP to rule the country for another painful 5 years.
She said demonstrations are held as one way of sharing concerns to government for it to correct some of the mistakes it is doing observing that the MCP has already proved that it does not want people to hold demonstrations in the country.
“Every time there are demonstrations, they are disrupted by MCP thugs armed themselves with panga knives, this is speaking for itself that demonstrations are not allowed in Chakwera’s led government,” said Kaliza.
