Malawi elections, Lucia Annunziata appointed to head EU observation mission

Brussels – The formal invitation to receive election observers has come from the Malawi authorities ahead of the presidential elections to be held on 16 September 2025, and for the ‘Election Observation Mission’ (EU EOM), the Union’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Kaja Kallas, has chosen Lucia Annunziata as chief observer.

The journalist and Democratic Party MEP elected on the Democratic Party list explained that she was “honoured to lead this mission, which will provide an independent and impartial assessment of the entire electoral process. As the Malawian people prepare to go to the polls, the European Union reiterates its support for Malawi in its efforts to strengthen democracy, uphold the rule of law, and protect human rights.”

The 11-member team of experts, led by Annunziata, will travel to the sub-Saharan country, nestled between Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia, on August 2. They will be joined by a further 28 long-term observers, who will arrive in mid-August and will be deployed throughout the country. Finally, a further 32 short-term observers will be deployed in the period closest to the elections. The mission will be concluded once the entire electoral process is over.

It has been over thirty years since the country’s first free elections. It was 1994. Malawi has consistently remained among the poorest countries in the world, ranking 174th out of 189 on the UN Human Development Index. More than half the population lives in poverty, and about one-fifth in extreme poverty. Economic stagnation is at the centre of the election campaign: the country’s economy is largely dependent on agriculture, a sector in which around 80 per cent of the population works, and which is suffering the consequences of climate change.

The outgoing president and leader of the Congress Party, Lazarus Chakwera, will face two other former presidents: Peter Mutharika (of the Democratic Progressive Party) and Joyce Banda (of the People’s Party). The last round of elections was somewhat turbulent: in May 2019, the Constitutional Court annulled Mutharika’s victory by a handful of votes, due to irregularities and fraud, and called new elections that handed the country’s leadership to Chakwera.

The African country’s call for the upcoming elections is therefore an expression of commitment to change and a turn towards democracy, with the support of the European Union.