Government

Human Rights Coalition Pushes for MEC Chair to Resign

WASHINGTON INFORMER — Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has organized demonstrations to take place on June 20 aimed at forcing Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) Chair Justice Jane Ansah to resign. The coalition gave Ansah 14 days to step down, but the MEC chairperson refused, saying she can only be removed by President Peter Mutharika.

Published

6 years ago

June 14, 2019

Oswald T. Brown

By Oswald T. Brown

Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has organized demonstrations to take place on June 20 aimed at forcing Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) Chair Justice Jane Ansah to resign.

The coalition gave Ansah 14 days to step down, but the MEC chairperson refused, saying she can only be removed by President Peter Mutharika.

According to HRDC, the protests will take place in Lilongwe, Blantyre, Zomba and Mzuzu.

Speaking at a press conference in Lilongwe on June 9, HRDC’s Timothy Mtambo, Gift Trapence and Billy Mayaya said they want Ansah to resign due to her commission’s failure to manage results in the May 21 elections.

“We further demand that the whole MEC commission should honorably resign because they cannot be spared from the mess,” Mtambo said.

HRDC recently wrote a letter to Ansah saying the public-at-large has lost trust and confidence in her stewardship of the electoral commission.

In the letter, which was signed by HRDC National Chairperson Mtambo, the coalition said Ansah has become a subject of international ridicule because of the way she mismanaged the results in favor of her preferred candidate while subverting the will of ordinary Malawian voters.

They added that many observers raised red flags on malpractices and irregularities, including tippexed result sheets, denying copies of results to monitors and electoral staff being found with pre-filled results sheets.

In the aftermath of the May 21 election, Opposition candidates alleged that figures on some results sheets were altered using correction fluid and demanded the resignation of President Peter Mutharika, who was narrowly reelected.

The main opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) of Lazarus Chakwera went to court after noticing what it claimed were irregularities in results from 10 of the country’s 28 districts.

The court in the capital Lilongwe initially ordered that the announcement of presidential results be delayed “until the results … are verified through a transparent recounting of the ballot papers in the presence of representatives of political parties which contested the elections.”

However, Malawi’s incumbent President Peter Mutharika was declared the winner of the election, having garnered 38.67% of the votes cast, according to results announced by the electoral commission (MEC) on May 27.

Voters in the southern African nation cast ballots for a president and parliament on May 21, in a bruising race between Mutharika and two former allies, Lazarus Chakwera and Deputy President Saulos Chilima.

Chakwera, of the opposition Malawi Congress Party, scored 35.41% of the votes, while Deputy President Chilima won 20.24%, the electoral body said.

This article originally appeared in the Washington Informer.

Oswald T. Brown

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Oakland Post: Week of June 4 – 10, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 4-10, 2025

Published

2 days ago

June 7, 2025

Oakland Post

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Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

Published

1 week ago

June 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in policing act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden. Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.