172 campaign handouts cases discarded

Registrar of Political Parties Kizito Tenthani says his office has dismissed 172 cases of campaign handouts in the September 16 2025 General Election due to a lack of evidence and failure to investigate. In an interview yesterday, he said the office has since drawn lessons and experiences that will enable it employ a different strategy in the March 17 2026 parliamentary and local government by-elections to ensure implementation of the Political Parties Act that bans distribution of handouts to influence voters’ choices. Tenthani said the nature of most complaints and the type of evidence submitted for the same were the two major challenges encountered while pursuing the cases.

He said most of the complaints lacked sufficient material for his office to work on while in some cases complainants expected the office to physically visit and conduct investigations. Said Tenthani: “[Further] we [the office] did not have the personnel and resources to match the demand. Regarding the first challenge, we need to conduct more civic education to sensitise people on the kind of evidence we require for us to be able to run with the cases.

“We also faced a lot of situations where when we engaged the complainants or the witnesses, some were not bold enough to accept that they would become witnesses should the cases advance to court.” To address the capacity gaps, he said the office is recruiting about 16 people in the 2026/27 financial year comprising lawyers, investigators and civic educators. “At its full capacity, the office will have 34 officers, so the other group will be hired in the next financial year because the authority I have now is for these 16,” said Tenthani. Meanwhile, he said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is examining two cases from his office while another set of 15 cases are pending direction from the DPP on how to proceed given the kind of evidence available.

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In a separate interview yesterday, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs spokesperson Frank Namangale confirmed receipt of the two cases and said the DPP was scrutinising them. “At the appropriate time, we will provide feedback to the registrar and, if necessary, advise the nation on the next steps the DPP may decide to take,” he said. Civil Society Elections Integrity Forum chairperson Benedicto Kondowe said the revelation from the registrar is deeply concerning, but not entirely surprising.

He said the office’s capacity constraints have existed for long yet elections continue to be conducted without adequately strengthening the institution mandated to regulate political parties and enforce the law. “Closing 172 cases due to lack of evidence and investigative capacity exposes a serious accountability gap and sends the wrong signal: that electoral malpractices can occur with little consequence,” he said.

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