The Malawi Candidate Survey (MCS) studies the costs of seeking and holding parliamentary office in Malawi. It follows similar studies conducted by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) in Ghana, Nigeria, and Benin. This presentation will focus on the costs associated with running for parliament. High costs of politics limits political representation, curtails competition, and spurs corruption. Although the importance of money in politics is well known among Malawian politicians, stakeholders, and political analysts the MCS is the first attempt to quantify and specify the costs of politics in Malawi.

The project is a collaboration between Michigan State University (United States), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Institute for Policy Interaction (Malawi), and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) (United Kingdom).