- The Vice-President says her relationship with the President remains cordial, even as she says some in the governing elite are unhappy with his choice
Vice-President Jane Ansah used her 71st birthday celebration to thank President Peter Mutharika for choosing her as his running mate in the 16 September 2025 general election, a decision that paved the way for her to become Malawi’s second citizen.
Ansah spoke at her official residence in Area 12, Lilongwe, on Saturday, a day before her actual birthday on 11 October.
Earlier last month, she said her relationship with Mutharika remains cordial, but that some officials in the governing elite were apparently unhappy with her selection and were coming between her and the President.
‘A living testimony’
Reflecting on her life, Ansah, a retired Justice of Appeal and Senior Counsel, said she could not have overcome many challenges without God’s intervention, calling herself “a living testimony of His grace”.
She described 2019 to 2020 as the most difficult period of her life and thanked her family for standing by her.
She was apparently referring to the aftermath of the 2019 tripartite elections, which she oversaw as chairperson of the Malawi Electoral Commission. Street protests led by some civil society groups, at times violent, demanded her resignation.
On 3 February 2020, the High Court sitting as a Constitutional Court nullified the election over irregularities in the management of results. The Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the ruling.
She also paid tribute to her husband for his support in her hardest moments, and thanked her wider family and friends.
A different guest list
Her guests included people with disabilities, people with albinism, people of short stature and the elderly. She said she chose to celebrate with groups often marginalised in society as part of her effort to promote inclusion.
“This year is different,” she said. Last year, she marked her 70th birthday with politicians, mostly from the governing Democratic Progressive Party, days after taking the oath as Vice-President.
She said she intends to use her Jane Ansah Foundation and other interventions to help the groups achieve financial stability.
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