Police for credible elections

By Tione Andsen

Stakeholders in the electoral process have statutory responsibilities to harness the achievement of fair, violence free and credible elections in the country.

Inspector General of Malawi Police Service, Rodney Jose made the remarks Monday at the official opening of Policing Command and Control Exercise at Ufulu gardens in Lilongwe.

“For the next three days with a sole purpose of acquiring additional knowledge and skills on how we can effectively contribute towards May 21 elections,” the Police Chief said.

He said the workshop would seek to secure from key stakeholders and guide planning through development of a single shared vision on how together to make entire electoral process successful.

Jose said MPS remain committed to provide the best security services in the whole electoral period.

“Let me, further emphasize that the success of each election depends on proper planning, development and coordinated strategies.   For this reason the importance of this workshop cannot be overemphasized,” he pointed out

The Inspector General said the expectation from the workshop is that knowledge and skills would be gained and put to proper use during the forthcoming elections.

He commended the British Government for various aspects of support to Malawi Government,

He said Malawi Defence force (MDF MPS and other stakeholders remain greatly indebted to the British Government for such support.

Leader   for Exercise Delivery Team from British Peace Support team (BPST) – Africa, Steve O’ Donoghue said the exercise was part of broader United Kingdom package of support to Malawi to conduct fair, free and credible election on May 21, 2019.

He hoped that Malawi would have a relatively violent free elections through the strategies put in place by MPS, NDF and MEC in November 2018.

This exercise is meant to build upon the Police Election Strategy Workshop for members of MDF, MPS and other stakeholders such as Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC).-Mana