High Court judge Madalitso Khose-Chimwaza has ruled that the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) wrongly disqualified UTM candidate for Nkhotakota Liwaladzi constituency, Daniel Binda, and has ordered for his inclusion amongst contestants.
MEC disqualified Binda because he paid nomination fees under the category of a youth, when he was not.
Binda is 35 years old. The revised National Youth Policy of 2023-2028 defines youth as all persons from the age of 10 to 35 years regardless of their sex, race, education, culture, religion, economic, marital and physical status. However, MEC defines a youth as someone who is less than 35 years old.
Through his lawyer Khwima Mchizi, Binda challenged the decision arguing that MEC did not inform him during both pre-inspection and after nominations presentation of the anomaly.
“We argued that MEC has a legal obligation to inform candidates of any anomaly during the nominations pre-inspection exercise and during the nominations presentation, but this did not happen. They just informed him of the disqualification. If they had informed him at the right time, the mistake would have been corrected.
“So, the court has agreed with us and has ordered MEC to include him on the list of the contestants. What it means is that Binda will just top up the fees,” said Mchizi in an interview.
There was no immediate reaction from MEC as we went to press.
The order comes hours after MEC received a final consignment of ballot papers for the forthcoming elections
