Without urgent and coordinated responses from domestic institutions and regional actors, Malawi risks descending into a cycle of contested legitimacy and democratic decay.

Malawians will go to the polls on September 16 to vote for the president and Members of Parliament. At this juncture, Malawi finds itself in an unenviable environment with questions about the impartiality of its electoral commission, and the protection of rights critical for a credible, free and fair election, including freedom of expression, association and assembly.

Echoes of Malawi's contentious 2019 election still reverberate. In a landmark judgment, Malawi's Constitutional Court nullified the 2019 presidential election due to widespread irregularities, becoming only the third African country to nullify a presidential election, after Côte d'Ivoire in 2010 and Kenya in 2017.

The judgment, which was scathing of the conduct of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) in its management of the election, was hailed as a triumph for democratic accountability and electoral justice.

As things stand today, Malawi's electoral landscape presents a stark paradox: on one hand, the memory of judicial courage and reform following the 2019 annulled elections; on the other, a deepening crisis of confidence that threatens to reverse those very gains....