Abstract
The report presents the findings of a study that aimed at investigating the effects of the absence of local elected councillors in Malawi local government. The research focused on Blantyre district council with a target of Urban and Rural areas, because these are the key sections in which the absence of local elected councillors has largely affected. The research will make conclusions and recommendations from the secondary data reviewed in literature together with the data obtained from the primary key informant interviews analysed. Local government administration in Malawi has since the attainment of democracy faced a number of challenges in terms of representation, implementation of accountability and decentralisation and mobilisation of local people to participate in decision making. This according to the background of the paper has been caused by an absence of the local elected councillors which are the key actors in the representation of local people in local government. The study adopted a qualitative data strategy in both data collection and analysis. It used key informant interviews and literature review as data collection methods. The research adopted the content analysis in the discussion of the data presented. It samples a population of 7 key local government informants within the council who had first-hand information on the topic of study. The research found that, local elected councilors are a crucial entity in the administration of local government. However, their existence has been hindered by political factors that lead to manipulating and compromising democratic principles like elections so as to block their mandate.
It is therefore on this basis that the research recommended that, the constitution should be reviewed to adapt with the new decentralisation provisions, create new strong legal structures that are to be instituted for enforcement of Malawi local electoral laws, fair conduct of elections by an independent electoral commission, continuous trainings of local elected councilors and citizen engagement would strengthen and ensure that councilors are in existence and deliver effectively.