While the constitutional mandate to head the mother body of Muslim organizations in Malawi, the Muslim Association of Malawi (MAM) is just within the parameters of expiry, the hope of elections to replace the current regime is in disarray.
The umbrella body, with panic made it known to the general public, that while it is not its intention to delay the election’s calendar, for both district regional and national, the constitutional 2016 MAM elections will be disturbed due to lack of support from the public.
It is alleged that MAM with the help of board of trustees, made appeal to individuals and organizations, to assist the association, soliciting funds for the election, but the appeal received a deaf ear.
Board of Trustees Chairman Sheikh Ali Kennedy lamented that this will impact MAM’s election calendar, scheduled to have rolled this month.
“It is true that we asked individuals and organizations to assist with monetary in the elections but up to now we have not received any donation or contribution unfortunately this will affect our calendar,” he said.
Answering to comments made by different people who said this is a deliberate move so that the elections should not take place Sheikh Kennedy said; “We know that people can make different comments that we are doing it deliberately but that’s not true because if they want to speed up the process they would have responded by contributing as we asked them to do so since MAM currently has no enough funds for the elections.”
MAM needs about 8 million kwacha in order to conduct these elections at all levels which includes district, regional as well as the national level but MAM has only few amount to the total budget.
“I can’t disclose here how much we have but it’s not enough to hold these elections and we are still asking people to come and contribute something so that we can conduct these elections this year,” said the Chairman of MAM Board of Trustees.
However, he is optimistic that MAM will conduct these elections this year since it will have an alternative way if people will not contribute.
“I cannot say that MAM will fail to hold these elections if nobody will come to our rescue. Currently we are still waiting for the well wishers to come in but if they fail to do so, we will seat down and make an alternative to make sure the elections have been conducted.”
Meanwhile, the Muslim Association of Malawi is appealing the Muslim community in Malawi to be patient enough and they should understand that this is not the association’s deliberate move to delay the election.
