There is an email message circulating around Malawi’s elite community that is said to expose how the Malawi tripartite elections were bought with money to favour one side to win. FaceofMalawi has managed to get in hold of this email message after a phone was accidentally found in our office building, unfortunately the story is quite a phenomenon of its own and we have failed to verify if its even true. The email message is as follows

CASE OF MALAWI : Evidence just coming in indicates that the just ended 20 May Tripartite elections was bought within the range of MK5billion to MK15billion. The actual figure will be made known shortly. While other parties were busy strategizing, campaigning and cris-crossing the country, the purported winner of the election put a hefty budget to buy the results in their further.

1. Buying of MEC staff and other Commissioners It is reported that a sum close to MK1.5billion was used to have staff and other commissioners within the MEC to tilt the results in favour of a political party. While other commissioners were meant to believe that the password to servers was safe and only in the hands of the Commissioners, this was disclosed to IT specialist of the political party which cloned the servers hence the MEC would not access their own system. The operatives within MEC went flat out to deny being hacked on the system but rather using the term slow. The use of Plan B was already outlining in the rigging as this would make it easier to tamper with the votes and figures. The other part was to proceed with express announcements of the results

2. Buying of Communication Company to jam cellphone communication It is reported that a sum of MK0.5billion was used to pay some technicians within a certain telecommunication company to jam cellphones of particular parties monitors in certain regions so that they should not be able to access information from their control centres

3. Buying of Police Officers It is reported that selected police officers totaling to 2500 were each paid a sum of MK50,000 spending close to Mk.125billion in order for them to threaten other political party monitors and also direct people on how to vote. The same also ensured that political party monitors are not given results sheets of the election

4. Buying of Presiding officers & clerks In selected districts a sum ranging from K10,000 to K20,000 was paid to election clerks and presiding officer to tamper with results sheets

5. Buying of Stakeholders including CSOs to support fraudulent results A whooping K1billion kwacha was spent towards member of CSOs and other stakeholders to depict that the party has won the election and help them in the fight

6. Buying media houses to deliberately announce results which is fake A whooping K100million kwacha was paid to a media house in order for them to help psychological battle and show that the party is winning.

– This story has been submitted by a third party and does not express the opinion of the people that work at FaceofMalawi nor does it express the position of the media house.  None of the people in this message have been questioned, neither has the story been verified.