VZCZCXRO7391
RR RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHLG #0924/01 2961434
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 231434Z OCT 06
FM AMEMBASSY LILONGWE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3416
INFO RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0232
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0130
RUEHLMC/MCC WASHDC
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 LILONGWE 000924 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR AF/S KAMANA MATHUR 
STATE FOR INR/AA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM MI
SUBJECT: LOCAL GOVERNMENT POLLS STILL UNCERTAIN 
 
 
LILONGWE 00000924  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Plans for local government elections in 
Malawi, delayed for a year and a half and now scheduled for 
May/June 2007, are still tentative, though there is slow 
movement in the right direction. End Summary. 
 
Political Will? 
--------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Mandated by the constitution, the local government 
structure consists of twenty-eight district, three city, 
one municipal and eight town assemblies.  Each assembly has 
a commissioner or executive, appointed by the president, 
who manages the day-to-day operations of the local 
governments.  The assemblies have limited authority to make 
local laws, including the imposition of fees and levies for 
local services. They are also a major key to the 
decentralization process that the government has been 
pursuing with funding from the World Bank and the German 
government.  The GOM plans to devolve significant 
responsibility for managing health, education and 
agricultural programs to the local governments over the 
next five years.  In the absence of assemblies, the 
commissioners/executives run the local administration, and 
report directly to the Ministry of Local Government. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Local governments were first elected into office in 
November of 2000, and served a full term until 2005. 
Elections for new assemblies, which were constitutionally 
mandated to take place in May of 2005, have been pushed off 
numerous times by the government.  The initial delay was due 
to a serious hunger crisis that demanded all available 
resources. Since that time, Malawi enjoyed a good harvest in 
the last growing season and the GOM's financial situation has 
greatly improved.  Though various reasons have been given for 
the continued delay, both the President and the Minister of 
Finance have privately expressed their lack of faith in local 
governments in general, and have outlined their belief that 
supporting the local government activities (salaries, 
offices, etc.) would put too heavy of a burden on the 
national budget. However, pressure from the donors, the 
opposition parties, and civil society forced the government 
to publicly promise to hold the elections in "the first part" 
of 2007, according to a speech made by the Minister of 
Finance on the floor of Parliament this past June.  Thus, the 
GOM is now looking to donors to fund some of the recurring 
costs of the local governments. 
 
 
¶3. (SBU) To that end the Minister of Finance recently called 
donors together to ask for financial assistance to cover the 
costs of running the local governments, once they are 
elected. He hinted that if funds were not made available by 
donors, the entire plan for devolution of power to local 
governments might be reconsidered by the GOM.  Even if donors 
come up with the funds to support the local governments, it 
will be a stretch to maintain the current timeline for local 
polls. The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) faces a number 
of technical challenges in preparing for the elections--such 
as completely overhauling the voter rolls and redoing a 
number of ward boundaries--and is already two months behind 
the timeline which they developed.  Unless the GOM moves 
quickly to back the process, it is possible that elections, 
if they take place at all, will have to be pushed back once 
again. 
 
Hurdles Ahead for MEC 
--------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) A host of challenges face the MEC in its attempt to 
organize the elections for next year.  First, though 
legally required to have at least six Election Commissioners 
to conduct business, there are currently on two (our of 
eight) commissioner seats filled.  Filling the other six 
seats awaits candidate selection and appointment by the 
President, in consultation with Parliament.  Until there are 
at least six seats filled the MEC cannot set the date of 
elections, re-design wards, or carry out many of their 
preparations for the election for fear that the results will 
be challenged after-the-fact on claims that the MEC acted 
unconstitutionally. 
 
¶5. (U) A second issue that the MEC faces revolves around the 
 
LILONGWE 00000924  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
constitutionality of having the polls in 2007.  The 
constitution of Malawi stipulates that local government 
elections take place the year after general elections, a 
provision that the government already violated.  In order to 
conduct the elections in 2007, the constitution must be 
amended to allow for the elections to be held at another 
time, aside from one year after general elections.  The MEC 
is again relying on government to pass this piece of 
legislation out of Cabinet and through Parliament. If this 
does not happen, again, the polls could be legally challenged 
as being unconstitutional. 
 
¶6. (U) Finally, the MEC must ensure that the government comes 
through on its pledged financial support. Though Parliament 
passed a budget allocating one billion kwatcha ($7.2 million) 
to the MEC for the elections, the actual disbursement of this 
money is not guaranteed.  The Treasury, under the 
administration of the Minister of Finance, must release the 
funds to the MEC to conduct their activities. In last year's 
budget MEC was allocated funds for elections that were never 
released, leaving the line-item 'un-funded'.  MEC, who is 
also relying heavily on donor support to fund the elections, 
plans to submit their cash-flow and official request for 
funds-transfer within the coming weeks. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) There is skepticism about local government at the 
highest level of the Malawi Government.  This skepticism is 
based on concerns about the cost of the elected counselors, 
their qualifications and education, and a sense that the work 
assigned to the elected councils would at best duplicate and 
at worst interfere with the responsibilities of the members 
of Parliament, the administrative duties of the 
colonial-hangover district officer system, and the role of 
the &traditional authorities,8 a government-supported 
system of local chiefs and village heads.   Sometimes this 
skepticism is expressed as a series of problems to be solved 
(we need to find the money for the councils, we need to put 
minimum educational requirements in place, we need a law to 
define clearly what they do, etc.) and at other times as a 
more fundamental concern about loss of control and doubts 
about the very concept of democracy at the local level (we 
need to change the constitution to eliminate this 
requirement).  (fortunately, there is no/no backsliding on 
the question of democracy at the national level.) 
 
¶8. (SBU) Nevertheless, the constitution of Malawi requires 
the existence of elected local governments, and 
decentralization legislation requires that they manage 
certain aspects of social services at the local level. 
Failing to elect counselors means that the local councils are 
entirely in the hands of the abovementioned existing 
institutions, since MPs, district officials, and traditional 
authorities sit on the district councils, albeit in a 
non-voting capacity.  This may be attractive to the &control 
freaks8 who populate the central ministries in Lilongwe, but 
it is antithetical to the existing constitutional scheme. 
In our view, there is very little chance that the national 
assembly could be persuaded to abolish the elected local 
councils entirely by constitutional amendment, since the 
assembly adopted without objection a &sense8 motion in the 
last session calling on government to hold the elections as 
soon as possible.  Thus the skeptics are caught between the 
constitution and a committed national assembly. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Where the absence of local government really hurts, 
however, is in amplifying the &democracy deficit8 in 
Malawi. There are only two rungs to elected political office 
at present, and the lowest is a seat in the national 
assembly. (Of course, the second is the grand prize of the 
presidency.) Therefore to fund entry to electoral politics in 
this country, it,s necessary to be rich, to have rich 
friends, or to have some other source of constituency-wide 
popularity.  Functioning local bodies would provide the minor 
league tryouts for a new generation of competence-based 
political leadership, something badly needed in this country, 
if the problem of rent-seeking can be addressed.  It is our 
intention, continuing to work with other partners, to 
encourage and facilitate the earliest possible election of 
local governing councils. 
 
LILONGWE 00000924  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
EASTHAM