Malawi: Party funding
Updated June 2006
State funding
Provision for the funding of political parties by the state is provided for in the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi (1994, Article 40.2.) which states:
The State shall provide funds so as to ensure that, during the life of any Parliament, any political party which has secured more than one-tenth of the national vote in elections to that Parliament has sufficient funds to continue to represent its constituency.
The constitutional provision thus supplies little in the way of guidelines for party funding. In terms of the threshold of 10%, only two parties in the current parliament, the United Democratic Front and the Malawi Congress Party, qualify for funding. The purpose of the funding is not, apparently, to finance party campaigning, but to finance constituency work.
According to UNECA (2005): "A 1997 law stipulated that 0.25% of national revenue should be earmarked for political parties". Unhappily the writer has not been able to find a copy of such a law, if it exists, or study its provisions. International IDEA (Undated) says that parties receive public funding only during election periods to finance election campaign activities and that the funding is allocated on the basis of the number of candidates nominated. If this is so it is in direct contravention of the clause in the constitution cited above.
Andile Sokomani (2005) believes that the Constitution requires that the party funds be distributed "in a proportional manner". However, no such provision exists in the Constitution. Sokomani further states that: "State funding is disbursed quarterly - during both election and non-election times. There are no specifications as to what the funding from the state may or may not be spent on, and no spending disclosure law. The allocation of the money is not publicised and informing party members on the amounts received is left to the discretion of party leaders".
Lodge et al (2002, 148) report that: "Of the three parties that do receive funds from Parliament [in 2002], only one agrees with the present formula". Unfortunately they do not tell us what that formula is, but rather go on to say: "The other two opposition parties propose either equal allocation or a formula based on the percentage of the electorate that voted for each party".
Private funding
The Parliamentary and Presidential Elections Act (1993, 66) provides that:
Every political party may, for the purpose of financing its campaign, appeal for and receive voluntary contributions from any individual or any non-governmental organisations or other private organization in or outside Malawi.
This is the full extent of the regulation of private funding. Parties are free to receive any amounts of funds from any source whatsoever barring, by implication, funds from state bodies and public owned corporations. There are no limits on expenditures and no requirements to disclose either sources or deployment of funds. Since funding from the state is inadequate to meet the needs of the parties, and other sources are scarce, "Parties in Malawi tend to largely rely on personal funding and on certain individuals as main fundraisers, this diminishes the collective participation, ownership and accountability of the party and, in addition, only serves to reinforce and perpetuate neo-patrimonial patronage systems" (EISA 2004, 16).
References
CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF MALAWI 1994, [www] http://www.sdnp.org.mw/constitut/brfindx.html [opens new window] (accessed 24 Oct 2007). Note: this copy of the Constitution does not include amendments made after 1998 such as the Constitutional Amendment Act of 2001, which abolished the Senate.
EISA 2004 EISA Election Update: Malawi 2004, no. 1 [PDF document], 15-19.
INTERNATIONAL IDEA UNDATED, "Malawi: Table: Direct Public Funding", [www] http://www.idea.int/parties/finance/db/country_view.cfm?CountryCode=MW& questionGroupID=11 [opens new window] (accessed 24 Oct 2007).
LODGE, L, KADIMA, D & POTTIE, D 2002 (eds), Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa, EISA, 121-136.
PARLIAMENTARY AND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS ACT 31 OF 1993.
SOKOMANI, A 2005, "Money in Southern African Politics: The party funding challenge in Southern Africa" IN African Security Review 14(4), [www] http://www.iss.co.za/index.php?link_id=23&slink_id=1153&link_type=12&slink_type= 12&tmpl_id=3.
UNECA 2005, "Chapter 1: Political Governance" IN Africa Governance Report 2005, 42, [www] http://www.uneca.org/agr2005/chap1.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 24 Oct 2007).