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 research think-tank has said previous  governments used humanitarian items such as cash and food, to win votes during the 2014 and 2019 elections.

However, in its policy paper, the International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri) said there is no evidence the strategy was successful in increasing the vote for the ruling party candidates in the two elections.

The paper titled ‘Targeting Hunger or Votes? The Political Economy of Humanitarian Transfers in Malawi’ has been co-authored by Jan Duchoslav, Edwin Kenamu and Jack Thunde.

The researchers analysed cash and food transfers distributed in response to the poor harvest in 2015-16 rainy season.  They related the information to households that received the humanitarian transfers and the results of the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections.

A woman voting during the previous election

Reads the report in part: “Controlling for the need and eligibility for assistance as measured by a remotely sensed drought index and a number of time-invariant household characteristics, we find that the transfer programme was disproportionately targeted at households in marginal constituencies, and that the difference in the chances that a household received transfers was sizable between marginal and safe constituencies.”

The researchers said within the context of the scholarly debate on the use of persuasion or mobilisation in distributive politics, the results, fall squarely in the persuasion camp.

“We do not, however, have any evidence that voters responded to the persuasion strategy by supporting ruling party candidates in the next election,” the report reads.

University of Malawi professor of political science Boniface Dulani said in an interview, politicians deliberately target humanitarian transfers in areas where they do not have strongholds.

He faulted the strategy, saying poverty or hunger do not know political boundaries, and, as such, exclusion means many people may starve because they depend on government’s help.

“This is what we call the incumbency advantage. In a country like Malawi where the majority is poor and need relief support from government, the party in power has control over resources and an advantage over the opposition,” he said.

However, Dulani said the good thing is that voting is secret, so they can always cheat politicians during the voting process.

Catholic University public policy, political institutions and governance expert, Rodwell Katundu said politicians often use such programmes as a tool for legitimising governments by the people.

“Therefore, there is a need for mindset change among the general public because their perceptions and actions with respect to humanitarian transfers as a means of legitimising governments determine how politicians manipulate these humanitarian transfers,” he said.

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