A single verdict will only change so much. But judges in Malawi have made it a little more difficult for politicians to rig elections
THERE ARE many ways to rig an election. Voters can be beaten or bribed. Ballot boxes can be stuffed. Computers tallying results can be hacked. But few methods are more rudimentary than that used last year in Malawi’s general election. In the southern African country of 18m people the dastardly tool was Tipp-Ex, the correction fluid that has saved many a teenager’s error-strewn homework.
It worked. On February 3rd the court concluded that there had been “widespread, systematic and grave” flaws in the electoral process. It ordered that a re-run of the general election be held within 150 days. Millions of Malawians have for months followed the twists and turns of the case live on radio broadcasts—but few could have hoped for such a decisive verdict.
Malawi’s case matters beyond its borders. African courts and international election observers have a history of acceding to suspicious results. Last year, for example, the constitutional court in the Democratic Republic of Congo affirmed that Félix Tshisekedi had won the presidency fairly despite bucketloads of evidence to the contrary. Regional political organisations have proved similarly short of backbone.
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