Public Affairs Committee (PAC) on Wednesday made an inquiry into how MEC Chairperson Justice Jane Ansah competently managed the May 21 presidential poll.
Justice Dr. Ansah told PAC that according to MEC’s assessment, the elections were free, fair and credible.
“We very much wanted fairness and transparency to ensure the will of the people is reflected, that is also the reason we engaged external auditors. We found out that auditors were very useful in the process,” said Ansah.
The MEC Chair also told PAC inquiry that electoral laws were not breached because of the use of Tippex.
She said: “Basically, Tippex was used to correct figures. The correct figures were captured after the proper use of Tippex. Auditors BDO were not instructed to approve altered results.”
On how she resolved the 147 electoral complaints, Ansah said all issues were resolved thoroughly.
“At the time of announcing the results all results sheets had been processed. An election is not an event, it’s a circle. It follows an electoral cycle, legal framework, planning and training. All stakeholders who are political parties were involved in this process. Everything we did we did not do it alone,” said the MEC chairperson.
She told the inquiring body that there was no room to take unilateral decisions during the electoral process.
She said she did not make decisions alone, saying all decisions were made by commissioners by either consensus or voting.
“If we did not agree there would be a vote. Our resolutions were unanimous. Where would I sit to make unilateral decisions,” she asked, saying they have Whatsapp and email platforms where decisions were made.
PAC has been conducting the inquiry since Monday, with six commissioners so far summoned to the inquiry.
The inquiry follows the February 3 Concourt verdict which nullified the presidential poll chiefly on irregularities and ordered PAC to assess the competence of the commissioners.
if we go by irregularities and NOT RIGGING, how could the current TIPPEXED and DUBLICATED pac used to inquire mec on the same grounds that ushered them into those positions? there is no fairness in all these happenings: if we are to say the court’s independence was affected by mtambo who has resorted back into the streets after seeing that the case has been appealed to force the appeal judges the same way he did to the concourt judges, are we wrong? the independence of the court is being jeopardised here and this will have long term complocations. everyone knowz that the whole electoral process was done in a transpant manner and it is obvious that mtambo and chakwera reesort to violent and intimidatory demos to sway justice from the truth. nullification basing on apm’s RIGGING could have be a justification of only nullifying the presidential polls but, irregularities which were errors not done in secret affected the whole tripartite elections and as such there is no point to just nullify only the presidential, surely kalipo kalipo, and this isn’t justice in eternity. we will keep on judging you.