Malawi's constitutional court annulled the 2019 presidential election. The 2020 re-run brought an extraordinary transfer of power from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party to the opposition Malawi Congress Party, raising hopes for economic and political renewal.
However, the new government came to preside over a period of deep economic crisis and growing public discontent driven by a series of overlapping shocks.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 pushed up the cost of key imports like fuel, fertiliser and maize. Malawi has also endured successive floods, droughts and cyclones. Severe shortages of foreign currency, fuel and electricity compounded the effects of poor harvests.
By 2025, the World Food Programme estimated that nearly one-third of Malawians faced acute food insecurity. This meant that Malawi's 2025 parliamentary election took place against the backdrop of profound political and economic turmoil.
We are researchers of Malawian politics, and in collaboration with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy's Cost of Politics programme, we sought to understand how an economic crisis can shape an election campaign. Collecting new data from 2025, we were able to make interesting comparisons with the 2019 poll.
We found that the cost of running for parliament in Malawi has risen dramatically from an average of US$20,000 per candidate in 2019 to US$51,000 in the 2025 poll.
The economic crisis intensified candidates' reliance on electoral clientelism. This is the exchange of benefits like cash or goods for political support, usually votes.
Malawi has one of the four highest poverty rates in the world, and for many people living in acute poverty, elections provided an opportunity to secure much-needed relief.
Clientelism, therefore, continues to play an important role in electoral competition, with weak political parties relying on well-resourced parliamentary candidates to finance campaigns.
Further, the oversight of campaign finance remains limited and weakly enforced. And the rising cost of campaigns has made it even harder for less well-resourced groups, particularly women and young people, to access political office.
The result is that politics excludes more people, and well-funded independent candidates can compete successfully against party nominees.
A heavy reliance on personal wealth distorts political competition. It also creates incentives for corruption, as MPs seek to get their money back once elected.
The cost of a seat in parliament
Malawi introduced new regulations in 2019 to curb this kind of politics. Before the 2025 election, there was further reform. Most notably, the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties was established a year earlier to enforce political finance rules, including a ban on material handouts during campaigns.
However, the office is under-resourced and understaffed. Though handouts are not legal, the office could not investigate every allegation.
We sounded the alarm about the cost of Malawi's parliamentary campaigns in 2019.
Our earlier survey found that the average parliamentary candidate spent around US$20,000 (in 2019's exchange rate) on their campaign. This is an astonishing sum in one of the world's poorest countries. Most of the money came from candidates' personal savings, according to our survey of self-reported campaign spending.
Candidates invested in sinking boreholes, building bridges or even buying ambulances. They also provided personal goods, including cloth, money or food, to voters. A lot of this spending happened during election rallies.
Yet campaign spending in 2019 pales in comparison with the costs incurred during the 2025 election.
In nominal terms (without taking into account staggering inflation of 238% between elections in 2019 and 2025), we found that average spending rose by 500%. Even after adjusting for inflation, campaign spending increased by 78% in real terms.
On average, candidates spent about US$51,000 on their campaigns in 2025 (in 2025's exchange rate). Among candidates who received more than 20% of the vote, average spending reached US$95,500.
We attribute the increase in spending to two factors:
a very competitive election environment – in 2019, candidates from the government party far outspent the competition; in 2025, candidates from both the ruling party and the opposition were able to spend large sums of money
the economic crisis, which increased the demand for handouts.
The drivers
Money-fuelled politics is one of the thorniest and stickiest issues in Malawian democracy.
Our research revealed confusion about the law around election handouts among both candidates and voters.
Politicians have raised questions about whether banning campaign handouts was ever realistic in a political environment where they are expected.
Further, candidates said Malawi's economic crisis created pressures to provide handouts.
Like many African countries, Malawi is a place of stark economic inequality. Those seeking elected office usually belong to the country's economic elite. For ordinary people facing severe hardship, elections became an opportunity to seek short-term economic assistance.
Candidates reported being asked to fund community development projects, pay school fees, and cover funeral expenses and medical bills. They were also expected to provide voters with cash, food and other basic necessities.
The Malawi Electoral Commission was praised for substantial improvements in its management of the election, but there has been little progress in addressing the role of money in politics.
This undermines electoral competition and weakens political representation.
What next
In fragile economic environments, democracies become more vulnerable to politics where money buys votes.
Policymakers need to make reforms that reduce candidates' reliance on this exchange. Our research suggests that it may be necessary to:
change to a more party centred system where individual candidates are less pressured to provide private resources
create protected pathways for women to contest elections
invest in the enforcement of campaign finance regulation
enhance the role of civil society to oversee intra-party candidate selections
introduce spending caps for parliamentary campaigns.
Such reforms will be essential if African democracies are to become more resilient during periods of economic crisis.
David Kayuni, Lingalierini Mihowa and Nandini Patel contributed to this article.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
By Michael Wahman, Professor, Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin And
Nicholas Kerr, Associate Professor, University of Florida
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