Staff ReporterThe Malawi elections which pitted the incumbent president Peter Mutharika and his erstwhile Vice President Saulos Chilima have been mired in alleged rigging.
Our sources in Malawi allege that Fattani Printers in Blantyre printed 800,000 more presidential ballot papers which they issued to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) operatives, who in turn stuffed them into ballot boxes.
It is said that the ballots were printed in the wee hours of 18th May 2019, the day official campaigning was closed.
Speaking to Report Focus News a source privy to the plot to print and stuff the ballot boxes with the fake presidential ballot papers said “About eight hundred thousand presidential ballot papers were printed then evenly distributed to all the polling stations especially in areas where President Peter Mutharika was expected not to do well.”
“These areas included Mzimba, Chitipa, Mchinji, Kasungu, Chikwawa, Nsanje, Dedza, Ntcheu, Balaka, Mangochi, Machinga and Mwanza.”
Our source also alleged that
The project was overseen by Harold Msusa, a brother in law to former cabinet minister Francis Kasaila, who was recently given a job at Malawi Post Corporation (MPC) without any interviews. Harold Msusa was said to have worked with Henry Shamu, Postmaster General, Pato Phoya and Timothy Sukali from Macra, Zaccheous Meke and Rev. Masauko Mbolembole.
Our source went on to call for all political parties to demand a recount of the presidential ballot.“If all opposition parties unite and push for the recounting of the presidential vote only, they will find these ballot papers that were printed at Fattani Printers.”
“The security features are different from those printed in Dubai.”
Our source also revealed the difference in security features on the ballot papers and advised the political parties to scrutinise this should a recount be permitted.
“In the recount, they should also look at the back of the ballots, they will find that most of them do not have the initials of the presiding officers because the DPP operatives did not know who the Supervisors were as this was done within a short time,” he added.
“If they do a recount, President Peter Mutharika’s votes will be dramatically reduced. The race will be between MCP’s Lazarus Chakwera and UTM’s Saulos Chilima. If they don’t do a recount, Mutharika will carry the day with stolen votes,” added the source.
According to insiders the ballots at Fattani were already marked for Mutharika and were slotted into the ballot boxes at the polling centres.
It was also revealed that the rigging project team used money from MPC salaries accounts.
