'Donors running Malawi poll'
2009-05-09 17:30
Blantyre - Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika on Friday accused Western donors of meddling in this month's elections in the southern African country.
"Donors are running the Malawi electoral commission. They have deployed a large army of expatriates at the commission. Actually they are interfering in the internal affairs of Malawi," Mutharika said at a presidential prayer breakfast in Blantyre.
"It's not right. This is outside the terms of diplomatic principals," Mutharika said.
He did not accuse any specific country, but former colonial power Britain and the UN Development Programme are partly bankrolling the elections, which will cost $50m.
The government is meeting the rest of the cost.
Malawi does not want to "jeopardise peace and stability because some donors want some people to win ...Let us think carefully", he said.
Donor money is an important lifeline to impoverished Malawi, accounting for 80% of the country's development budget.
Malawi holds on May 19 its fourth multi-party elections since the dictatorship of the late Kamuzu Banda ended 15 years ago.
Mutharika will square off with the main opposition leader John Tembo and five other aspirants, including Malawi's first woman presidential candidate, Loveness Gondwe.
Tembo now heads the Malawi Congress Party, once the tool of Banda's dictatorship.
Tembo has inked an electoral alliance with the former ruling United Democratic Front, which is chaired by ex-president Bakili Muluzi - who toppled Banda at the ballot box in 1994.
Muluzi was axed from the contest by the electoral commission, saying he had already served his two terms in office from 1994 to 2004.
Some 5.8 million voters have registered for the elections.