Political parties, campaign financing and political corruption in Malawi

After nearly a quarter century of procrastination, Malawi passed a Political Parties Act in 2018 to govern the regulation of political parties. The old Political Parties (Registration and Regulation) Act of 1993 was passed on the understanding that a more substantive legislation would follow, but the new Act dragged on. As a result, Malawi’s political parties did not have any restrictions on party and campaign financing for 23 years, a fact that has been facilitating and aiding widespread political corruption in the country. Adopting a comparative analysis of the two pieces of legislation and weighing them against the available evidence on political corruption, this chapter addresses the two questions of how, and to what extent, the absence of an effective regulatory framework governing political parties between 1993 and 2018 contributed to political corruption in Malawi, and what provisions were included in the 2018 Political Parties Act aimed at curbing political corruption. The analysis of the effects of the new law is very preliminary, but somewhat negative.