The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has been responsible for most of the protest in Malawi. Many were on basis of the 2019 controversial presidential election which demanded the resignation of senior members of the electoral commission on the basis of mismanaging the polls in which incumbent President Peter Mutharika was declared the winner.
The constitutional court in Malawi annulled the results of the May 2019 vote last month due to widespread irregularities and ordered a new election to be held within 150 days. But for those elections to be organized, the president has to agree to the new bills. The parliament has since approved bills to hold a new election on May 19th 2020, but Mutharika, who has appealed the ruling overturning his election victory, has yet to sign them.
This is the first time a presidential election has been challenged on legal grounds in Malawi since independence and the only second poll result to be cancelled in Africa after the 2017 Kenyan presidential election.
In response to the president’s delay and seeming refusal to sign the bill, the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) led by Timothy Mtambo and accompanied by Gift Trapence and MacDonald Sembereka, called for an anti-government protest to be held at the president’s official residence on the 25th of March. The team promised to shut down three presidential state-owned residences last week in a bid to force Mutharika to ratify electoral bills that were recently passed in parliament.
Trapence and Sembereka were arrested hours later on the basis of mobilizing people to close down the homes of top government officials. The police launched a hunt for Mtambo who handed himself over to the police on Tuesday 10th March 2020. Thousands took to the streets of the capital, Lilongwe, in a show of support for the activist.
According to Charles Kajoloweka, a leader of the Youth and Society group and HRDC member, the arrest is “unlawful and orchestrated by partisan politics”.
Amnesty International condemned the arrest, describing it as “deeply troubling” in a statement on Monday 9th March. “Many human rights defenders have been subjected to threats, including by President Arthur Mutharika and senior leaders of his party,” “Malawi authorities must immediately and unconditionally release the detained activists. The authorities must stop threatening, harassing and intimidating human rights defenders and allow them to freely exercise their rights.” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty’s director for East and Southern Africa.
The arrest has been seen as an attempt by the current government to shut a critical voice that has emerged in the country, and this is arguably right given the reason for the arrest and the claims of the government.
The government rejected the allegations claiming “there is nothing political about the arrest of the activists, but they have broken the law. No one is above the law whether they call themselves Human Rights Defenders Coalition, they are not above the law, and there is nothing political about it.” This was said by Mark Botomani, the minister of information and government spokesperson.
Despite the response of the government, the three activists pleaded not guilty and were granted bail by a magistrate court on Thursday, 12th March 2020.
