Annabel Mtalimanja

Annabel Mtalimanja (born 26 July, 1976) is a Malawian high court Judge and from 2024 the chair of the Malawi Electoral Commission.

Mtalimanja was born in 1976 and her father was John Tembo who was a leading politician and president of the Malawi Congress Party.^[1]

She studied law at the University of Malawi and graduated in 1999. She completed her masters degree in law at the University of Melbourne in 2005. She worked at the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs rising to be Administrator General. In 2013 she was appointed as a High Court Judge.^[2][3]

She became a Fellow of Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 2021.^[2] In the same year she was part of a five judge panel for a constitutional court led by the new attorney general Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda. It was an unusual case as the Democratic Progressive Party were arguing that an election should be overturned because it had been overseen by members of the Malawi Election Commission who had been illegally appointed. The case was thrown out when it was pointed out that the illegal appointments had been made by the DPP. They were now trying to benefit with this case from their own illegality.^[4]

Mtalimanja was a high court judge when she was nominated to lead the Malawi Electoral Commission by the Judicial Service Commission.^[2] She was appointed by the President Lazurus Chakwera and she will serve for four years.^[2] She was sworn in as the new chair on 24 June 2024 by the Chief Justice Rizine Robert Mzikamand.^[5]

In October 2024 four of the leading political parties held a press conference where they accused Mtalimanja of favouring the Malawi Congress Party because her father was a leading member of that party.^[6] They accused her of bringing in a system to rig the next election. The system in question, Smartmatic, had been chosen some time before Mtalimanja became the new chair of the MEC.

In November 2024 Mtalimanja and the MEC announced the charges made for those wanting to contest an election. The fees were increased but it was noted that candidates who were women or who were disabled would only be charged half of the fees. Mtalimanja announced that these reduced fees would not apply to Presidential candidates but only to other election contests.^[7]