The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) is seeking the court’s interpretation of President Peter Mutharika’s October 10 2025 Executive order to relocate the electoral body to Blantyre from Lilongwe. In Executive Order No. 1 of 2025 issued five days after his inauguration, the President also directed Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) and Malawi Housing Corporation (MHC) headquarters to return to Blantyre while Malawi Prisons Service headquarters was ordered to revert to Zomba, all within three months.
While Macra and the other institutions have moved, MEC has stayed put in Lilongwe. In a statement last evening, the commission said its decision to seek judicial review stems from its reflection of the legal framework establishing MEC, in particular, Section 76 (4) of the Constitution and Section 6 (1) of the MEC Act. Reads the statement: “Through this application, the commission seeks a definitive clarification from the court on whether the directive to relocate its head office does not constitute unlawful interference with its constitutional and statutory powers, functions and duties.
“Furthermore, the commission is seeking an interim intervention to its enabling Act. “Any directive that potentially affects MEC’s operational independence—especially so close to an electoral cycle— must be subjected to strict constitutional scrutiny. “MEC is, therefore, right to seek judicial clarification to safeguard its autonomy, institutional stability, and public confidence in the electoral process, which are indispensable to free, fair, and credible elections,” he said.
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“The relocation shall commence immediately upon issuance of this order and be completed within three months from the date of this order,” read the order in part. MEC moved its head offices from Blantyre to Lilongwe in June 2023 while Malawi Prisons relocated its headquarters from Zomba in January 2024 followed by Macra in March 2024 alongside MHC. The major relocation of all head offices for the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), which were housed in Blantyre to Capital Hill in Lilongwe, were initiated by former president Bingu wa Mutharika in 2006 to ease coordination and purportedly cut costs of travel of MDA officials to and from parent ministries in Lilongwe.
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