By Cathy Maulidi:
With polls just three months away, major political parties in the country are all out on the ground, spending significant amounts of money.
However, these political parties do not have known businesses that could help fund such rigorous campaigns.
Almost all of them rely on donations from members and “well-wishers.”
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The Political Parties Act of 2018 mandates that parties declare donations exceeding K1 million from individuals and K2 million from organizations to the Registrar of Political Parties.
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None of them has done so.
We spoke to several influential politicians from the two major political parties, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) to understand why they are reluctant to disclose their private financiers.
One MCP official said that the party’s reluctance stems from the worry that disclosing private financiers would lead to the perception that they are beholden to special interests rather than the public good.
“Maybe, for instance, a certain private company or a person funds the party, and tomorrow they are given a contract. What will the general public say?
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“It is tricky because most of the financiers do help the party in order to get something in return, whether a contract or some government favors such as appointments into big and influential positions, so it may be a big issue if they get these things after it was announced that they made a donation,” said the contact.
He said some financiers also support multiple political parties for their own reasons and prefer to remain anonymous.
A DPP contact also said it is difficult to disclose financiers because many provide assistance on the condition that they receive something in return once the party is elected into government.
“This happens everywhere, even in the US. Companies, individuals and public institutions finance political parties. Companies do that to get a favour in return, while many public institutions or government companies do that for the ruling party because they are ordered to do so.
“With the ban on public institutions funding political parties in the Political Parties Act, these institutions now use other illegal and secret channels to still fund the political party,” he said.
Convention financing under scrutiny
During the MCP convention last year, Convention Chairperson Kezzie Msukwa informed delegates that Malawian ambassadors to different countries and their staff contributed over K50 million towards the event.
When asked about this at the convention, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nancy Tembo downplayed the question. She said the ambassadors assisted in their individual capacities.
However, that donation was a “drop in the ocean” as the convention was a lavish affair with a budget of K1 billion, which was significantly higher than the K100 million budget for the same party’s convention when it was in opposition in 2018.
During the DPP convention, the party’s spokesperson Shadric Namalomba was asked if they received funding from public institutions or Malawian embassies abroad, similar to the MCP.
He said: “The people who fund them also provide funding to us, but we will not disclose here, but we have people in their government who are providing us resources.”
He jokingly added, “Each time they (the financiers in government) call us and they say mutisungire malotu kumeneko, kuno zavuta basi [save us some space there, we are not winning this election].”
When contacted, the Registrar of Political Parties, Kizito Tenthani, said his office began meeting with political parties this week.
“We are engaging them now and giving them the forms which they are supposed to fill to disclose, and I will release a statement after meeting all of them to inform the public that now we have told them what to do and we have given them the forms.
“Maybe if you give us time, when everything is done, we will report progress,” he said.
Tenthani also said that private financing disclosures have proven challenging due to the difficulty in determining when political parties receive donations that require disclosure.
“At the moment, we are following up on disclosures on money spent on the conventions because we know there were huge donations made,” Tenthani said.
Calls for transparency
In 2021, the Malawi Law Society demanded that the Registrar of Political Parties disclose the sources and amounts of money received by four major political parties— MCP, DPP, UTM, and UDF— during the 2019 and 2020 elections.
The law society even took the Registrar to court for failing to provide the requested information, emphasizing the need for transparency and accountability.
They argued that the lack of transparency in political party financing raises concerns about corruption, state capture, and undue influence by wealthy donors.
A recent study titled ‘Assessment of compliance gaps in political party and campaign financing under the existing Malawi legal framework,” conducted by good governance researchers, revealed that laws governing campaign financing in the country have gaps that allow public funds to be secretly channeled to political parties.
The report, presented by good governance expert Augustine Magolowondo, said that the ban on public institutions funding political parties does not stop money from being channeled indirectly through individuals or businesses connected to corporations or parties in power through suspicious contracts.
Former Anti-Corruption Bureau Director Martha Chizuma once said that political party financing is “the heartbeat of corruption in Malawi”.
Section 27 subsection 2 of the Political Parties Act reads:
“A political party may, for purposes of financing its activities, appeal for and receive donations from any individual or organisation within or outside Malawi, provided that the source of every donation, whether in cash or in kind and whether once or cumulatively, with a monetary value of at least K1,000,000 from an individual donor and of at least K2,000,000 from an organisation shall within 90 days of its receipt be declared to the registrar by the political party concerned.”
